The Monkish
by Bob Wright
Summary: Monk follows a lead on his wife's murder to Eastbridge, New York, where he assists Tony Scali on a baffling local case with far-reaching implications. NOW COMPLETED.
1. A Lead for Trudy

THE MONKISH

BY

BOB WRIGHT

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Here we go with what will probably be the next-to-last story in the series, and the last crossover. Eleven tales in, it's admittedly getting harder to come up with strong cases for Monk to pursue, but I'll do my best and hope you come home satisfied again.

I know I take a risk whenever I try and take a stab at deconstructing Trudy's murder, knowing it may well be overridden in the end. Thus, if anything I say here turns out to be incorrect in the end, forgive me when the time comes. If more information about her death is revealed before this story is completed, it will be updated in the relevant places with the information we'll learn.

Adrian Monk and all related characters and indicia are registered trademarks of USA Network, Mandeville Films, and Touchstone Television. The Commish and all related characters and indicia are registered trademarks of Stephen J. Cannell Productions and Three Putt Productions. And now, as always, sit back and enjoy the story.

* * *

The clock on the nightstand read quarter to two in the morning. Despite the hour, however, Adrian Monk did not feel like going to sleep. He glanced up at the ceiling in his darkened bedroom, one hand lying on top of his wife's pillow, which he was stroking gently. Today was his wife's birthday, and he had no intention of missing a moment of it; since he'd met her so many years ago, he'd rarely slept on this day.

"I hope, wherever you are now," he whispered softly to Trudy's picture on the nightstand, "You're thinking of me too. I hope you haven't forgotten."

He turned his head towards Trudy's side of the bed, as if he expected her to appear at any moment. The room, however, remained quiet and still. Adrian turned his gaze back to the ceiling. It was taking all his energy to stay awake, for it had been a long day. He'd been awakened early the previous morning for a new assignment. Apparently a half dozen men had been gunned down on the docks in what looked like a double cross operation of some kind, for half of them had been stuffed into empty packaging crates. The detective had been able to determine that, despite the drugs found in each man's pocket, it had not been a drug deal-there was no residue inside any of the crates-but could not figure out what had been going on there before the murders, and thus he'd spent the rest of the day listening to Captain Stottlemeyer plead with him to find something, anything, as the press was up his back on the matter. He'd promised to give the docks a more thorough look-over the day after tomorrow-he'd made it a long-standing tradition to never work on Trudy's birthday, something he'd continued doing even after her death.

Suddenly, without any warning, his doorbell rang. Adrian jumped up in bed, a frown on his face. He quickly threw on his robe and bustled to the door. "Who is it?" he inquired, glancing through the peephole.

"Adrian Monk?" asked a man wearing a janitorial uniform. The detective unlocked the door and opened it a crack. "Can, can I help you?" he asked.

"Hi, Mr. Monk, I'm Rob Nicholls, I work at the bus station downtown," the man introduced himself, "Listen, you should know, I was cleaning out the station an hour ago, and I heard the fire alarms go off by the lockers. I went to check it out, and this guy was burning some things. He ran off before I could stop him, but when I took a look at what he hadn't burned, I saw it related to you, so I brought them over and..."

"Hold on a minute, let me see that...wait, on second thought..." Adrian's brow furled seeing the layer of grime covering the metal box Nicholls was holding. Holding up his hand for the man to hold still, he ran for the kitchen and pulled a pack of wipes out of the drawer. Hustling back, he scrubbed the box down with one. Flicking on the overhead light, he noticed the words TO ADRIAN MONK-OPEN IMMEDIATELY written in marker across the front. "Which locker was it in?" he inquired, producing his tweezers and using them to open the lid.

"Number 1497," Nicholls told him, "Unfortunately, there's not much left; whoever this guy was, I can tell he destroyed a lot of what was inside. How he knew this was in there, I don't know, or how he broke the lock on the locker and the case, but..."

Adrian held up his hand again. He strode into the den and sat down at his desk. Tipping it sideways so the ashes spilled into a handy plastic bag, he pulled out the front-most piece of paper inside and began to read:

_Adrian Monk, _

_My name is Rufus Ziegler. You knew me as Brother Rufus from the monastery. By the time you read this, I will be dead. I can no longer live knowing now the grief I have caused you. I helped to kill your wife Trudy._

Adrian almost fell backwards out of his chair in shock. There was a terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach; the road to Trudy's killer HAD run through the monastery all along, and he'd followed the wrong lead! And now it was clearly too late. Dismal, he turned back to the paper:

_In 1997 I was a money handler for the mob, nothing really to crow about. I received an anonymous phone call right after Thanksgiving that my services were needed for something big, that I had to deliver some cash to certain parties. On the night of December 16th, I came to Fisherman's Wharf after midnight. Shortly thereafter, a suitcase full of money was thrown out of a passing car with the instructions on where to deliver it. I drove it to a point underneath the Bay Bridge, where Frank Nunn picked it up. He said only thanks and turned and left. Shortly thereafter, I grew tired of my ways and joined the monastery, but reading the newspaper every now and then, and seeing things progress the way they did, I was able to piece together in full what had transpired and who all was involved. I can never make up for my crimes, but having seen firsthand how you've suffered, I would like to try and repent by telling you everything_ _so you can catch the guilty parties and finally find peace. _

_I should probably start with the information you want most. Your wife's death was ordered... _

Unfortunately, the arsonist had burned the rest of the page, destroying the incriminating information forever. Adrian slammed his head down hard on the desk. At least he knew Rufus was telling the truth; only one of Trudy's killers would have known the date of her death-December 14th, 1997-and put the information in locker #1497, or 14-97. But why, why, why, WHY hadn't Rufus told him this directly when he'd had the chance!? He shuffled through the rest of the case. Only one other piece of paper was intact enough to read. He squinted at it and tried to make out Rufus's increasingly hasty handwriting:

_...initially only going to give Nunn two grand as well, but Nunn demanded he get preferential treatment for the role he was going to play, so he upped Nunn's share to $10,000 and wired him for the additional funds. This was money that I delivered. Even then I had a feeling the cash had come from him. _

_If you can catch him, Monk, he can probably tell you everything even if the Judge gets to this note before you do. At last check-which would be two months before you came to the monastery-he was living in the city of Eastbridge in upstate New York. But above all, please hurry; the Judge knows I sent this information for you to find, and if he gets to it first, he'll tip him off and he'll flee. So when you read this, I strongly advice you head to Eastbridge right away, and try not to drag anyone else into it with you; the Judge will know and try and use them against you. _

_Again, Monk, I cannot express how sorry I am for what I've done to you. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me some day. Farewell and good luck. _

_R.Z. _

Adrian's heart leaped. There was still hope after all. Slamming the paper back into the box, he rushed back towards the door, where Nicholls was still waiting. "You said you worked at the bus terminal, right?" he asked breathlessly.

"Yeah?"

"Are there any buses heading to Eastbridge, New York in the next twenty-four hours!?"

"I can check for you," Nicholls pulled out his cell phone and stepped out of the doorway. Four minutes later, he came back nodding. "No direct bus, Monk, but we've got one leaving in forty minutes for NYC; you'll probably be able to get a connector to Eastbridge from there," he told the detective.

"Any tickets left!?"

"Probably; we don't get too much passengers at this hour."

"Thank, thank you, you've been more of a help than you can imagine," Adrian told him, shaking Nicholls's hand, then wiping himself off, "Listen, before you go, call me a cab to take me to the depot; I've got something to take care of; tell it to be here in fifteen minutes. And, if you can, try not to tell anyone about this, it's top secret."

"Sure, whatever..." Nicholls was cut off as Adrian closed the door on him. The detective bustled into his room and dressed as quickly as he could. Fifteen minutes was barely enough time to get together everything he needed. He reached for the phone, ready to tell his assistant where he was going, but his hand paused on top of the receiver. No, he figured, Rufus was right; no need dragging the people he cared for into it if there was a verifiable threat on their lives. He dug through his drawers for a spare piece of paper, wrote down a hasty explanatory note, and placed it on his desk in the den where it could be easily found. He'd give a call back when he'd made progress. He pulled his suitcases out of the closet and began filling them with everything that would be necessary, eager to be on the road and a step closer to solving the most important case in his life.


	2. A Cross Country Trip

"Mr. Monk?" Natalie Teeger pounded on his door, "Mr. Monk, it's me, I know you're up by now, we've got to get going."

There was no reply from inside the apartment. Natalie glanced at her watch: quarter after seven. Adrian was usually up and ready to go at this time. She dug through her pocket for the spare key. "Mr. Monk, come on, the captain'll be upset if you're not...Mr. Monk?" her expression turned to befuddlement as she entered his apartment. The closet was opened and empty except for Adrian's old police uniform, still wrapped in plastic and hanging crisply on the rack. "Mr. Monk? Anyone?" she called out, digging out a can of mace from her purse; it was increasingly looking like an intruder might have gotten inside. A quick glance in the kitchen, however, dispelled that notion, for his cabinets were bereft of the myriad of Summit Creek water bottles that he'd kept for "emergencies." Completely puzzled, she dug out her cell phone and dialed a familiar number. "San Francisco Police, Captain Stottlemeyer speaking, how can I help you?" came the equally familiar voice.

"Captain, it's me," she told him, "I'm in Mr. Monk's apartment; he's not here."

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "What do you mean he's not there, Natalie?" came the reply, sounding both disgusted and shocked.

"Just what I said, Captain; he's not here," she glanced into the bedroom, taking note that the bed had been completely made and breathing in relief, as that indicated her employer had certainly not been kidnapped, "It's like he just vanished into thin air; half his supplies are gone too."

There was another long pause, followed by a low, aggravated groan. "And he didn't call you at all about anything since you left my office yesterday!?" Stottlemeyer asked, exasperated.

"No, not since I dropped him off and..." Natalie stopped, as she'd heard the front door swinging open. She spun around and let out a low cry to see a figure standing there. "Oh, Kevin, just you," she breathed a sigh of relief.

"Natalie, pleasure as always," Adrian's neighbor greeted her warmly and shook her hand, "What brings you in here like...?"

"Kevin, did you happen to see Mr. Monk this morning!?" she pressed him.

"Hmm," Kevin thought hard, "See him, no, but I got wakened last night by some intense shouting down on the street; that was probably around ten; it took me a good half hour to get back to sleep; I usually try condensed milk to get..."

"Kevin!!" she glared at him impatiently to get to the point. "Right, um," he nodded, "I woke up again at about two thirty; there was lots of scraping and banging down here, like Adrian was moving all sorts of stuff around; I didn't think anything out of the ordinary about it, since he tends to do it a lot, but it did seem..."

"Wait, wait, what's that note?" Natalie had noticed the paper lying on Adrian's desk over Kevin's shoulder. She strode over, picked it up, and read:

_Natalie, _

_Something's come up that I have to do alone. Please don't try and contact me; I'll contact you in due time. Please don't panic; I'll be all right on my own. I'll tell you about it when I get back. _

_Your more generous than you care to give credit to employer, _

_Adrian Monk _

"Hey, what's going on in there?" Stottlemeyer's voice came in over the cell phone again. Snapping back to reality, Natalie raised it back to her ear. "He's left on some sort of special mission, Captain, he doesn't say what," she told him.

"Terrific, just terrific!" the captain growled. Natalie heard something get thrown to the floor on the other end of the line. "We're in the middle of a really big investigation here, and he skips out without telling us!" he howled.

"Now, now, Captain, control yourself," she tried to placate him, "It could be something perfectly rational..."

"Perfectly rational!? Natalie, you know full well the words perfectly rational do not apply to Adrian Monk!!" Stottlemeyer continued ranting, "I really needed this case solved as quickly as possible!!" He took several breaths before continuing, more calmly, "All right, just, just start by calling everyone we know he knows; maybe it's something for his brother or something. Meet me in my office in a half hour if you don't here from him by then."

"Right, got it," Natalie hung up. "Kevin, you know my number?" she asked him.

"Of course, 555-4193," he reeled it off, "You want me to do anything?"

"Call me if you hear from him at all," she told him, bustling towards the door.

"OK, but I wouldn't get too worried," he tried to reassure her, "He's probably safe and secure in the last place we'd think of looking."

* * *

"Eastbridge," Adrian breathed in relief, taking note of the welcoming billboard along the side of the road. It had been a very long day; fourteen hours to New York on the bus, then another half hour wait at the Port Authority before he'd boarded the bus to Eastbridge. He'd only gotten about two hours of sleep on the way, being far too excited at what might be waiting for him, and was barely able to stay awake.

The bus slowly slid to a stop at the Eastbridge depot near the downtown. Adrian rose up once it had stopped and pulled several smaller suitcases out of the overhead bin (most of the other passengers had their entire possessions in their own overheads, as the rest of Adrian's luggage had taken up all the outside bins). As he stepped down to the curb and started unloading his belongings, it finally dawned on him that he really had no idea where he was supposed to look first. He opened one suitcase and looked the note over again, but Rufus's information was far too vague to gain anything out of. It had been eleven years, after all, and the person in question could be doing anything at the moment. Still, since his subject had been a money dealer back in the day, though, it would stand to reason that he might still be in the field, perhaps even legitimately. Glancing up the street, he happened to notice a bank not more than three blocks away. He looked at his watch: five minutes to five. He'd have to hurry. "Uh, porter," he hailed down one coming out of the depot, "Could, could you watch my belongings here? I'll be back to get it in a moment (he tried to pay no attention to the porter's wild double take at the sight of the massive stack of suitcases before him). Just have to take care of...a couple things."

A nearby trash can was overflowing. Adrian opened another suitcase and snapped open his mechanical garbage claw. He rushed over and picked up as much garbage from the ground as he could, hustled up the street towards the bank, and dropped it in a less-filled can. "Every little bit helps," he said to himself, picking up stray gum wrappers and other litter on the sidewalk and disposing of them properly as well. Ahead of him he could see people starting to file out of the bank. "Sorry, we're closing for the day," a man in a suit tried to tell him, "You'll have to come back...hey!"

"Still two more minutes till closing," Adrian squeezed by him into the bank. "Everyone, can, can I have you attention please?" he announced out loud to everyone still in the bank, "This, this will only take a second. You, are you the manager there?"

He made the mistake of pointing the claw at the manager. "ROBBERY!!!!" came a loud scream, followed by more screams as the staff and remaining customers hit the ground, apparently expecting Adrian to open fire or attack them in some way. An alarm sounded. "No, no, I"m, I'm not a bank robber!" the detective shouted over the alarm's roar, "I, I just need to talk to...!"

The claw was slapped out of his hand. "Not this time!" shouted a large, burly guard, who shoved Adrian into the wall, "Hold him, Nick!"

His partner appeared out of nowhere, and the two of them started pummeling Adrian in the chest. "You're, you're making a mistake!" he tried to rationalize with them, "I didn't come here to...!"

"We're not falling for that again, Charlie!" barked Nick the guard, "After you almost killed us hitting this place last week, we're not taking any chances with you!"

"But my name's...!" Adrian was cut off as a pair of policemen charged through the front door, their weapons cocked. "What's going on in here?" the first one in shouted over the din of the alarm.

"He tried to hold us up!" an old woman cried from under the check table, pointing at Adrian. "Well, well, you couldn't resist trying it again, could you Charlie?" the officer laughed, pushing the detective around and pulling his arms behind his back, "We've got you this time, and your lawyer can't help you out of this jam."

"Hey Stan, look at this," the other officer held up Adrian's claw, "They either must have run out of firearms, or Charlie's really desperate to make an impression."

"My name isn't Charlie, it's Ad--!!" he tried to protest.

"You can't fool us," Stan snickered, snapping his handcuffs on Adrian's wrist, "Half the people at your heist here last week positively identified you as none other than Charlie "the Sledgehammer" Loof. Want to take a bet the same people will ID you again? Why don't we go downtown and find out?"

"I wasn't trying to rob the bank, officer, I just wanted a word with the management!" Adrian tried to reason with his arresters as they led him out the door, "Please, I'm here on official police business; I'd like a word with your superior as soon as possible!"

"You want a word with the commish? No problem at all," the other officer told him with a wry smile as he loaded the detective into the back of their cruiser out front, "Let's go have a word with him, then; he's been wanting a word with you for a good long while now."


	3. Mr Monk Meets the Commish

"Right. Well, if you hear from him, Doc, let me know right away," Stottlemeyer said wearily into his phone. He hung up just as Natalie entered his office. "Nope, no word on him from Dr. Bell," he told her, "You have any luck?"

"Sharona hasn't spoken with him in two months," she shook her head, "Ambrose hasn't heard from him in a week. I'm getting worried, Captain; where could he have gone?"

"I have no idea in the world," Stottlemeyer lowered his head to his desk in frustration, "How in God's name can Monk disappear without a trace!? He's technically the star of the most popular show in America; he's got a face more recognizable than the president's! Someone had to have seen something by now!"

"Captain," Lieutenant Randall Disher pushed past Natalie into the office, "We just got a call..."

"Good, where is he!?" Natalie asked him breathlessly.

"Uh, no, it's not about Monk, we've got another homicide," the lieutenant told her, shaking his head, "Victim's name's..." he checked his notepad and frowned. "Uh, Captain, this might sound strange, but could you give me a hand with this?"

"You can't even read you're own handwriting!?" Stottlemeyer rolled his eyes incredulously. He reluctantly got up from his desk and squinted at the paper. "Actually, it's worse, I can't even read this!!" he groaned, digging out his reading glasses.

"Well the caller who found the body was a little hysterical and spoke a little fast, but I got that she found him in a dumpster off Pine, and that he worked for the bus depot downtown...sounded like Don Rickles or something like that. Wouldn't that be something, solving Don Rickles's murder for..."

"Save the thought, Randy; his name was Rob Nicholls," Stottlemeyer had finally been able to decipher his adjutant's handwriting by holding the paper about an inch in front of his face, "Well, might as well check it out. Natalie, stay here and hang by the phone; let me know if Monk calls here."

"Right," Natalie sat down at his desk and stared intently at the phone. "Come on, Mr. Monk, why can't you just call us?" she mumbled out loud.

* * *

"I'm telling you for the sixth time, I am not Charlie the Sledgehammer!" Adrian continued protesting to the arresting officers as he was taken into the squad room at Eastbridge's police station, "My name is Adrian Monk, I'm a former homicide detective; don't either of you watch TV?"

"Sure, and last week you were a Cornell psychology professor before you drew the shotgun and blasted the bank up," Stan still wasn't buying his statement, "Here, have a seat," he pushed the detective down at what was apparently his desk. "Hey, Paulie," he waved to a blond-haired man in a loud striped shirt by the coffee machine, "Tell the boss we just picked up Charlie the Sledgehammer hitting the bank again."

"Sir, if I may," Adrian raised his foot to get the man's attention, his hands still cuffed behind his back, "I really would like to talk to your superior, this is very, very important...you missed the second button from the top there, too."

"The commissioner's rather busy at the moment," Paulie dismissed him, doing the button properly nonetheless.

"Please, I'm begging you, it's vital I have a word with him, or...or...or I'm rearrange everything in this precinct from top to bottom!" Adrian tried to sound threatening without being too threatening. Paulie sighed. "All right, all right, I'll get him," he sighed, trudging up the hallway.

"OK, Charlie," the other officer whose name still escaped Adrian unlocked the handcuffs, "Let's start from the beginning. Why'd you hit the bank again?"

"Haven't either of you been listening to a word I said!?" the detective started rearranging everything on Stan's desk until they were symmetrical with each other, "I am not this Charlie...!"

"Never mind, Mike," Stan shook his head, "He'd've cracked by now if he wanted to say anything. Just get the fingerprint set so we can book him."

"Fing...Fingerprints!?" Adrian gulped at the thought of having to go through that unnerving booking procedure. He tried to rise up, but Stan pushed him back down as Mike came back with the ink pad and a fingerprint form. "Um, how, how about we cut a deal?" he tried to plead his way out of it, "You, you agree not to do this, and I'll draw you my fingerprints, is that OK?"

"Draw your fingerprints!?" Mike burst into laughter, "You must be really desperate to try that, Charlie. Come on now."

He seized the detective's thumb and tried pulling it towards the ink pad. "All right, you can photograph my fingers up close!" Adrian howled, straining as hard as he could to keep his thumb from touching the ink, "Just don't do it, please, no, please, no, please...!!!!"

"All right, what's the story out here!?" came a new voice from up the hallway. Paulie had returned, leading with him a short, rotund man with a receding hairline--not all that dissimilar-looking, Adrian thought, from that violently unhinged special forces cop in Los Angeles whose terrible depravities in the line of duty had been making the papers for weeks. The newcomer's eyes went very wide at the sight of Adrian sitting at the desk. "Oh boy," he whispered softly, "Oh boy. Uh, Stan," he waved the arresting cop over, "Why don't you go put him in my office and keep an eye on him while I run over the reports on that car theft ring?"

"Your office?" Stan frowned, "Boss, do you think that's...?"

"It's an order, Stan," the newcomer told him firmly, "Just make sure he doesn't touch anything."

Stan shrugged. "OK Charlie, you heard the commissioner, this way," he helped Adrian up and led him down the hall out of the bullpen. "Right in here, then," he paused at a door labeled ANTHONY J. SCALI, COMMISSIONER OF POLICE and opened it up, "And like the boss said, don't touch anything. I'll be right out here in the vestibule, so don't try anything."

"I'm, I'm not going anywhere," Adrian reassured him. He entered the office and sat down in a chair across from the commissioner's desk. Then got up switched his chair with the one to the left of it, which did not have a squeaky back leg once he'd tested it. At least he'd finally get out of this mess soon, it appeared.

He glanced around the office. Scali was apparently a highly successful officer, for the walls were festooned with many awards and achievements in the line of duty. Many books about crime procedures and scientific material that could be helpful in an investigation lined the bookshelves. The detective rose and walked behind the desk to stare at a framed photograph of Scali and what was apparently his family on the table against the wall--a black-haired woman, a blond-haired boy of about fifteen, and a baby girl of around two, all smiling happily. Adrian felt a deep pit in his stomach; at the moment, he felt like he'd give anything to switch places with the commissioner. He noticed the middle drawer of the nearest filing cabinet was open a crack. He strode over and started to push it shut...then changed his mind and opened it, and began rearranging the files inside.

The office door swung open behind him. "Hey, hey, hey, hey!!" Scali jumped forward and seized the file in his hand, "I thought I said not to touch anything in here, Monk!"

"You know me?" the detective frowned.

"Monk?" Stan stuck his head in the door, "Isn't it...?"

"Stan, you just picked up Adrian Monk," Scali informed him, "I can understand the mistake, since..."

"Who is this Charlie the Sledgehammer!?" Adrian had to ask.

"This guy," Scali opened the bottom filing cabinet and held up a mug shot for Adrian to see. Adrian shivered; apart from a scar on his left cheek and wilder hair, Charlie the Sledgehammer looked an awful lot like him. "He's hit nearly a dozen banks in the Tri-County area," the commissioner informed him, "You'll have to forgive my men, Monk; Stan doesn't always look before leaping and Mike's new to the force."

"Uh, boss, if this isn't Charlie the Sledgehammer, who is he?" Stan spoke up again.

"He's only one of the best homicide detectives in the whole country, Stanley; don't you watch TV at all!?" Scali raised an eyebrow at his officer.

"Oh. Well, I'm, I'm not in trouble, am I sir?" Stan sheepishly backpedaled.

"No, Stan; it was an honest mistake," his superior conceded, "Just go fill out the report. I'll take it from here."

"Right," Stan shuffled off. "Have a seat, Monk," Scali gestured him back into his seat as he plopped behind the desk, "Now, I've got to ask, what in God's name did you think you were doing in that bank? It got hit last week; somebody could have had a heart attack."

"I, I didn't mean to start a panic," Adrian told him, straightening out Scali's nameplate on his desk, "Mr. Commissioner, I'm here in Eastbridge on official business, I thought someone in that bank might provide a lead I could use. I was hoping you might be able to help..."

"Ordinarily I'd love to, Monk, but the fact is what you did in the bank was disturbing the peace," Scali shook his head, "Under the law, I've got no choice but to hold you for twenty-four hours pending..."

"Mr. Commissioner, if I may, I'd, I believe I'd like to make a plea bargain," Adrian raised his hand.

"Plea bargain!?" Scali raised his eyebrows in turn.

"You, you don't press the disturbing the peace charges, and I'll tell you the answers to all your unsolved cases in there," Adrian gestured at the filing cabinet. Scali almost fell backwards out of his chair. "Huh?" he asked, incredulous.

"Let me show you," Adrian produced his tweezers and pulled the biggest file out of the cabinet. He opened it on the desk and picked up the first case paper with the tweezers. "This hit and run was the work of a Merle Overly of 23 West Noble Street," he proclaimed, "The tire tracks on the victim match that of a 1990 Cherokee, which matches the one parked outside his address I saw when the bus came into town. These bicycle thefts," he pulled out the next case, "They're the work of one Jeremy Pinkett, age nineteen..."

He continued with the rest of the cases in the file until he'd touched on all of them. Scali's face grew brighter and brighter the further they went. "I can't believe it," he exclaimed excitedly when the detective had finished, "That's almost two hundred cases in fifteen minutes, and after you had about five seconds to look at them in the first place. We've been working on some of these for over six months. You are the real deal!"

"Well, it's a blessing..." Adrian began.

"Yes indeed, and blessing and a curse, but mostly a blessing," Scali was practically dancing with delight as he refiled all the cases. "Paulie," he waved the man down as he was passing outside the office, "Paulie, we need to get a whole load of warrants together; Monk here just cracked a whole load of cases for us!"

"Who is this Monk guy, anyway?" Paulie frowned at the detective, "A couple of people in the squad room keep saying something about TV, but I..."

"Hang on, Paulie," Scali raised his hand in thought, then let out a loud excited laugh. "TV! Paulie, you're a genius! Now we can get the offenders off the streets AND save money by avoiding all those door-to-door warrant deliveries! Get everyone together in the bullpen; I'll be in to give them the rundown of how we'll proceed."

"Are you sure you're OK, Tony?" Paulie frowned at him.

"Never better, Paulie, never better," the commissioner had plopped behind his desk again and was scribbling down words on a notepad. Paulie shrugged and walked out. "Yes sir, Monk, City Hall'll be pleased when we bring all these people in," Scali continued larking as he wrote away, "Now, what did you say you were in town for again?"

"I didn't say yet," Adrian pointed out to him, "Commissioner, I'm following a lead on my wife's murder. I have a hunch one of the killers lives here in your town."

Scali abruptly stopped writing and looked slowly up at Adrian. "Really?" he asked, shocked and sympathetic. Adrian nodded and handed him Rufus's note. Scali poured over it. "Well, this isn't that much to go on, Monk," he said, "But since you helped me, I'll do everything I can to help you. If this guy's involved in dealing money, I'll get every launderer in town to talk for you, so you go home with something."

"I, I would appreciate it," Adrian nodded, "And, if there's anything else I can do for you..."

Scali's face lit up even brighter, if such a thing were possible. "As a matter of fact, Monk, I've got something here that's right up your alley," he said, digging through his desk, "We've had a slew of homicides the last couple weeks that're driving us crazy. We can't seem to get any leads, so any help you can give, we would appreciate it."

"OK, I'm, I'm up for it, but you have to promise not to tell the press I'm here; as you saw on the note, people could get hurt and hurt bad if whoever I'm following knows I'm here," Adrian cautioned him.

"It's a deal," Scali reached forward to shake his hand, then stopped in mid-shake. "Oh, sorry, forgot you don't like that."

"Well, better late than never, I guess," Adrian started frantically wiping his hand on his tuxedo, wishing he'd've brought at least one suitcase of wipes from the depot.

"I guess we could pick up some wipes from the drugstore on the way over to the crime scenes," Scali offered, "Anyway, if you'll wait here for about five more minutes, I'll go over with the troops how we'll bring in all the people you just fingered for us."

"OK," Adrian nodded. "Oh, Commissioner," he spoke up as his new associate was leaving, "I hope you don't mind me asking, but you do look an awful lot like..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, everyone's been pointing out how much I look like that psycho in L.A. lately," Scali shook his head in resignation, "Somehow I have a funny feeling I'm going to be connected to that guy for the rest of my life even though I never heard of him before, and I don't approve of his methods at all."

* * *

"Again, thank, thank you for the extra wipes, even though I have more than plenty in my suitcases," Adrian thanked Scali as they pulled up in front of an average looking house on an average looking street, "And thanks for holding out for the right kinds."

"Well, I just hope they'll let you go back in there again if you end up needing more; Sherman looked pretty upset after you got picky," Scali looked unsure, "But anyway, Monk, here's where it all started two weeks ago. The victim was Ruth Rogers, she was seventy-eight and lived alone. We got a call from the neighbors that things were being thrown around in her house, and when we showed up she was stabbed dead on the floor, and the place had been trashed. But the strange thing is, there was no sign of forced entry, and the doors were all locked, so we had no idea how the killer got in at all. And above that, nothing seemed to be missing; all the valuables she had weren't touched at all. Let me help you with that."

He pulled back some of the police tape over the door that Adrian had been trying to slowly slip through. "We found her here at the bottom of the stairs," the commissioner pointed to a chalk outline on the floor, "And there were no fingerprints, no footprints, no nothing to ID the killer at all. It's like he materialized out of thin air then disappeared once the job was done. Can you see anything we missed?"

"Give, give me a minute," Adrian started walking around the downstairs making his familiar hand gestures. He paused briefly in the den to draw a wipe from his new stash and wipe at a smudge on the window. "She was upstairs when the killer found her," he spoke up after a few minutes, "He thought shoving her down the stairs would do the job, but she was still alive, and he had no choice but to stab her. But it was all for nothing; what he was looking for wasn't here. There was no sign of forced entry at all?"

"None whatsoever, and the house was locked up tight; we had to break the door down when we showed up," Scali shook his head, "No footsteps outside, and since it had rained the night before the murder, we'd've known if someone came up to the house, but the neighbors confirmed no one came by. Upstairs?"

Adrian had begun ascending the stairs. He glanced into the bathroom and peered hesitantly at the toilet. "The killer went the bathroom right after he did it," he proclaimed, making sure to stay well clear of the toilet itself, "Ruth Rogers had just cleaned it; the scent of the cleaner's only slightly worn off, which could be done by a single flush. He had been holding it a long time."

"Interesting," Scali took the information in, "Anything else?"

Adrian walked into Rogers's bedroom and looked around. "Sorry, nothing from what's here," he shook his head.

"Well, it's a start, and maybe you'll get luckier tomorrow; the same guy's struck four more times since then," the commissioner informed him, "Different streets and different ages for the victims, but the same M.O., no traces of his presence left behind. I'd take you there now," he was glancing at his watch, "but I promised the wife I'd be back no later than seven. You got a place to stay for the night?"

"Um, well, Commissioner, actually, I, I really hadn't thought out that far," Adrian admitted, "I, I was basically hoping I'd get the guy right off the bat and not have to worry about picking a place."

"Oh. Well, in that case," Scali's face was lighting up again, "When was the last time you had a nice, hearty Italian dinner, Monk?"

"Italian? Can't say I have for a while," Adrian nodded as he realized what his associate was offering, "But, but we'll have to get my things from the depot first."


	4. Home Sweet Temporary Home

"Are you sure you really had to bring all this with you, Monk?" Scali had to inquire as he backed into his driveway at 1209 Beech Street. Adrian's belongings had taken up every square inch of the car from the back seat to the trunk, forcing the commissioner to lean halfway out his window to see where he was going.

"You should always be prepared for anything on a trip," Adrian reminded him, "You're not centered in the driveway."

"No one's going to notice," Scali beeped the horn twice before shutting the engine off, "Meanwhile, since you did bring so much, it looks like we're going to need some extra hands bringing this in."

"Again, you didn't have to do this," Adrian told him, hefting a pair of trunks holding his vacuums and disinfectants.

"Oh it's no problem at all, Monk; you helped me with the cases, I'll help you with having a roof over your head," Scali dragged a larger trunk holding Adrian's radiation suits towards the front door. It opened as he approached, and the black-haired woman from the photograph appeared. "What's all this for, Tony?" she asked her husband with raised eyebrows.

"Just help give us a hand here, Rach; we'll be having a visitor for a while," Scali was straining hard to avoid dropping the trunk. His wife looked past him to see Adrian following with his own trunks. Her eyes widened. "Oh my," she exclaimed, "Is this...is it really...?"

"Yep, it's the real Adrian Monk," her husband told her, breathing heavily as he dropped the trunk in the living room floor, "He's here on official business; he'll be staying with us for a while. Monk, meet Rachel, God's gift to Planet Earth."

"Rachel Scali, nice to meet you," she shook his hand as he came in, blushing from her husband's compliment, "Um, well, this is certainly a surprise. If I'd ever thought...what is it?"

Adrian was glancing around the living room as he wiped his hands off, a nostalgic look on his face. "Oh, it's just...this house, it's a lot like the house Trudy and I were going to buy, before Dale...before the trial she shouldn't have been put through happened," he said, his face darkening at the thought of the pain Dale the Whale had put his wife through.

"Oh. I'm sorry that didn't work out, Monk," Rachel told him sympathetically, "But at least you put the fat man in jail in the end."

"So I take it you watch the show regularly?" Adrian inquired, unloading a couple of vacuums.

"Every Friday night, we're all here in the den," Scali smiled, "Certainly better than an hour of Incredibly Stupid Celebrity Stunts, or whatever the other networks want to put on against you."

There came the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. "Hey what's going on down...?" asked the boy from the photo. Much like his mother, he did a large double take at the sight of Adrian. "Oh my God, is it...!?"

"Sure is. Adrian Monk, my pride and joy David," Scali introduced his son, "Uh, Dave, I hope you don't mind, Mr. Monk and I were thinking, if you might let him have your room while he's here, if that's all right."

"Mine!?" the boy frowned.

"Here's, here's the thing, I need a bed to sleep on, and it seems yours is the only spare one in here, sorry," Adrian pointed out. David sighed in resignation. "Just try not to do anything....anything we can't fix later in there," he conceded to the detective, "Promise?"

"Promise," Adrian nodded.

"OK, now that that's all set, why don't you help us move his things in, David," his father urged him on. David almost fainted at the sight of the dozens of suitcases and trunks stacked up in the driveway, but sighed and trudged over to the pile. "Don't, don't worry, it's not that heavy, really," Adrian tried to reassure him as he went back out for another load of his own, making a mental note that he'd have to straighten the commissioner's car out in the driveway some time later that evening.

* * *

"OK, what've we got here?" Stottlemeyer called to one of the officers on the scene of Nicholls's murder as he and Disher bustled over from their car.

"Victim's one Rob Nicholls," the officer told him, "The witness here," he gestured to a homeless woman being interrogated, "Was looking through that dumpster for food and found his body stuffed inside, stabbed twice."

"In the dumpster, huh?" Stottlemeyer glanced at the dumpster in question, which was being phtographed by police photographers, "Maybe it's good Monk isn't here; he'd already be neutralized with this. Speaking of which," he turned back to the officer, "Any news on where he might be since I gave you guys the A.P.B. on him?"

"Nothing at all, Captain," the officer shook his head.

"All right, just remember to let me know if you do hear or see anything," the captain sighed. He followed Disher towards the dumpster. "Well, guess we're going to have to do this without him," he conceded.

"Well, we've seen how he does it, shouldn't be too hard to pick up," Disher stopped in front of the dumpster and started walking slowly around it making Adrian's familiar hand gestures. "May I ask what you're up to, Randy!?" Stottlemeyer asked, his eyebrows raised.

"Well, I'm figuring, if Monk's not here to help us solve this, we might as well step into Monk's shoes and try and figure it out the way he might," Disher explained. He glanced over the edge of the dumpster and let out a gasp. "What, what is it?" Stottlemeyer leaned over his shoulder.

"Oh my God, Captain, there's garbage everywhere!" Disher cried out in a rough imitation of Adrian's voice. He began gyrating like he was having a seizure. "I need a wipe, quick, wipe, wipe...!!"

Stottlemeyer smacked him on the the shoulder. "Will you PLEASE stop that!!??" he upbraided his adjutant, "Not only does that not sound like Monk at all, but you are embarrassing everyone wearing a badge in this alley!!!"

"Just trying to get into character as Monk, sir."

"This is not about getting into character, Randy, this is about solving...!!!" Stottlemeyer noticed a notepad lying on the ground underneath the dumpster, right underneath where Nicholls's hand hung down from the dumpster's cusp. He bent down and picked it up, flipping to the first page with writing on it. He let out a loud cry. "What!?" Disher rushed over to him.

"This is it, this is the break we've been looking for!" Stottlemeyer held up the notepad for the lieutenant to read, "Lieutenant, Rob Nicholls met with Monk before he died."

"Monk's address," Disher's eyes widened at the sight of Adrian's address written down in the book, "Hey, they said this guy worked at the bus station..."

"So it makes sense Monk might have gone there," Stottlemeyer hastily pocketed the notepad and hustled back toward their car, "Get Natalie on the horn and tell her to meet us there."

* * *

"Um, I'm not being picky, Mr. Monk, but I think most people would want to eat the spaghetti and meatballs together," Rachel asked the detective at the Scalis' dinner table.

"But I'm not most people, as you probably know," Adrian scraped the last bits of sauce off the spaghetti and scraped it against the rest of the sauce on the edge of the plate so it wouldn't touch either the spaghetti or the meatballs. He tried staring at the ceiling in an attempt to not notice that everyone else's spaghetti and meatballs were touching in a major way. That was the least of his concerns at the moment, however. There came another small clatter to his right as the baby--Sarah, he'd deduced from several rudimentary crayon drawings on the refrigerator--once again sent her fork flying and no doubt sending food onto the floor. It was taking all of his composure not to panic knowing this was happening, but he was determined to stay calm and not set a bad precident for his hosts just a few hours into his stay with them.

He took a quick gulp of his Summit Creek. "So, uh, Mrs. Scali," he addressed Rachel, his eyes fixed firmly on her face and not her plate, "How well did your students do on that spelling test you gave them today?"

"So you guessed I'm a teacher?" she was impressed.

"Well, the test papers were partially sticking out of your purse on the sofa; the penmanship of the answers corralate to that of an average third grader," he explained his rationale, "Then after classes were over for the day, you went to the store and picked up apples and honey, because tomorrow's Rosh Hashanah. The date's circled on your calendar," he pointed to it hanging on the wall.

"What did I tell you, Rach; the man's better in real life than he is on TV," Scali proclaimed proudly.

"Sure is," David was equally impressed, "Come on, what else can you figure out just by sitting here?" he challenged the detective.

"Well,..." Adrian glanced around the kitchen, "You changed the grade on your last chemistry test; you only passed by one percentage point and upgraded it to an A- on your computer. You shredded the real one over there in the paper shredder when no one was looking."

"He what!!??" Scali rounded on his son, who looked deathly pale that he'd bitten off more than he could chew. "I, I, I..." he stammered, trying desperately to salvage the moment somehow.

"If, if it's any comfort, Commissioner, he was scared that you'd react kind of the way you are now," Adrian added quickly, not wanting things to disintegrate, "He is genuinely guilty he spent too much time playing his video games, and he's determined to try harder next time."

"He's right, Dad, I swear I'll try harder from now on," David pleaded desperately. For a moment, the glare remained fixed on his father's face. Then he shook his head in resignation and mumbled, "All right, see to it you do."

"Anyway," Rachel seemed quite eager to change the subject, "Tony told me you think someone who killed your wife's here in Eastbridge, Mr. Monk?"

"I'm, I'm almost sure of it, Mrs. Scali," Adrian told her.

"Do you think it's that six-fingered guy the bomb builder told you about?"

"No, actually, I don't have to worry about him anymore," Adrian said, "Actually, I'm, I'm a lot farther ahead of the series." He related to them all his encounter with the six-fingered man, and how he'd beaten Frank Nunn to a pulp and had come seconds away from killing him before deciding that Trudy wouldn't have wanted it that way, only to have Nunn gunned down anyway moments later. He described his harrowing run from justice that had ended with Dale the Whale's further chastizing and the information that Nunn had been working for "the Judge." And that's basically where I am now," he finished, "I have a feeling deep down there's something close I should be seeing, but it hasn't hit me yet. You wouldn't happen to know anything, about the Judge, would you Commisioner?"

He gave Scali an almost pleading glance. "Sorry, that doesn't ring any bells, Monk," his associate shook his head, "but I checked out a list of rudimentary launderers before we left for the crime scene, and one of them stands out. First thing in the morning, I'll call the warden up at Attica and have him brought down for some hard questioning. After, of course, we get all the leaflets printed up for our brand new TV station."

"What new TV station?" Rachel inquired.

"Oh, Eastbridge's brand new sports channel--funded entirely by us at the Eastbridge P.D., of course--which will be offering giveaways to everyone Monk fingered earlier," he explained with a wry smile, "After all, even your average bike thieves and rapists can't resist the lovely allure of an all-expenses-paid vacation to Waikiki. The 'winners' are going to get congratulatory mail in the next couple days telling them where to come for their prizes, and the moment the perps come in to claim them, they get their vacation, all right--up the river, that is."

"And you get..." Adrian stopped and tried to block out Sarah now pounding her utensils on her plate next to him as if it were a xylophone, "And you get them off the streets without..."

The baby suddenly began wailing loudly, prompting the detective to jam his hands over his ears in extreme discomfort. "What, what is it honey," Rachel picked up her daughter and gently rocked her back and forth, "What's got...?"

Her gaze fell on the microwave screen, where she let out a loud gasp. Adrian noticed it too; the reflection of a face looking in through the window. "There!" he pointed, but whoever the peeper was, he was already pulling away and leaving.

"Down, everyone stay down, stay together!" Scali ordered his family, "Monk, with me!"

He thrust open the top drawer on the cabinet and yanked out a flashlight. Adrian followed him out into the living room, where the commissioner unlocked his gun from its box, and then out onto the lawn. "Police, hold it!" Scali yelled, looking around in all directions, but there was no sign of anyone in the darkness. Adrian glanced down at the ground. "He came in from over here," he gestured at a hedge to the left of the house that had several branches out of alignment, "He was wearing business shoes, size ten."

"Business shoes, huh?" Scali shook his head, "And what have we here?"

He aimed his flashlight next to the drainpipe, where shards of glass glistened in the light. Adrian dug out his tweezers and picked up a shard. "Binoculars," he mused, digging out a plastic bag and dropping the shard and then the other shards inside, "Fourteen inches in diameter. Standard store-bought issue. He was startled we saw him and smashed it when he turned to leave."

"OK, which way did he go afterwards?" the commissioner pressed him.

Adrian glanced around the property. "That way, back through the hedge," he gestured. Scali nodded and hustled back to his car. "This is C1, I'm reporting a suspicious person at home base, looking in through the windows, heading west on Beech with broken bincoulars somewhere, see what you can find," he barked into his radio. Adrian, sensing the danger was past for the moment, went back inside, taking a moment to straighten several crooked pictures on the wall and deposit the bagged glass on the table so he could examine them later. "It's, it's all over, he's gone now," he informed the rest of Scalis as he reentered the kitchen.

"Well, I'm not too worried if it's just someone looking in the window," Rachel admitted, gently rocking a now asleep and oblivious Sarah, "After having lived through an apparent bomb threat, this is really nothing. No sign of him, Tony?" he asked her husband as he came back in.

"Nope, but we'll get a unit looking up the block," he said, giving her a relieved kiss, "In the meantime," he turned back to his son, his glare returning, "If you're done with dinner, I suggest you go finish your homework for the night, and make sure you let us read over it so we know you'll get the right grade, clear!?"

"Yes, Dad," David sighed. He leaned close to Adrian as he walked by him and muttered, "Thanks a lot."

"Well, you asked me what I could see," the detective responded.

"I guess you're done with dinner then, Mr. Monk?" Rachel asked him. Adrian nodded. "If, if I may, Mrs. Scali," he spoke up as she started collecting the dishes, "I wouldn't mind doing the dishes for everyone while I'm here. I could probably handle the cleaning in the other rooms, too, if it's OK."

"Um," Rachel exchanged glances with her husband, who gave a shrug, "OK, I suppose so," she conceded.

"Thanks you, you'll thank me later," Adrian took the dishes off her. He dumped almost half the bottle of dishwashing liquid into the sink and started filling it with water, even more confident that he was going to enjoy his stay here in the end.


	5. On a New Case

"Captain," Natalie rushed through the doors of the bus terminal and galloped over to Stottlemeyer, standing at the information desk with Disher, "What did you find out?"

"Still working on it, Natalie," the captain was quite frustrated. He turned back to the man on duty at the desk, a balding white-haired man with thick-rimmed spectacles and a very large set of hearing aids with the name ART stenciled on his uniform. "Let's run over it again," he said with thinly veiled disgust, "Were you or were you not on duty last night after midnight!?"

"Huh?" Art leaned towards him, befuddled, "What was that again?"

"Were you on duty last night?" Disher spoke loudly right into his ear.

"Yes I was, and there's no need to shout, young man!" Art groused at him, "Yep, I work 8 to 5 most nights. Now you said you were looking for a Mr. Junk?"

"Monk, his name is Monk, for about the seventh time!" it was taking all of Stottlemeyer's energy to remain calm. He thrust Adrian's picture in Art's face, "Did you see and talk to this man at all?"

"Oh yeah, I remember him," Art nodded, "Rather hyper young man, kept ranting and raving about how I needed to hurry up and get him a ticket and all that...what'd you say his name was again?"

"MOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNKKKK!!!!!!!" Stottlemeyer yelled right in his face at the top of his lungs.

"Now Captain," Natalie pulled him aside and admonished him, "He's handicapped; you have to be more respectful." She approached the desk and asked Art politely, "The man you met last night, what bus did he get on?"

"Huh? What'd you say?"

"What...bus...did...Monk...get...on?" Disher carefully spelled out each word for him, holding up Monk's picture.

"Hmm," Art scratched his head, "You know, I don't really remember."

Stottlemeyer let out a loud aggravated growl, grabbed a brochure off the nearest rack, and started tearing it up in frustration. "Did you possibly type in his destination in your computer there?" Natalie tried to block the captain out, pointing to the computer next to Art.

"I would if I knew how to work it, young lady, but those damn computer people sent me a defective model," Art turned it around to face her, "Look at it, all it does is have fish go around all day."

"Um, that's the screen saver there," Disher pointed out. He shook the mouse around so the main screen popped up. "Say, that's pretty impressive," Art commended him, "Are you some kind of computer expert?"

"Um, let's check it to see where Monk went," the lieutenant reached for the keypad.

"It won't work, Randy; this guy had no idea how to use the computer last night, so there's no way he could possibly have typed it in!" Stottlemeyer barked, "So basically we're right back at square one for...!!"

"Hey what's all the yelling about over here!?" a guard had strode over, annoyed.

"Uh, did you happen to see this man at all?" Natalie grabbed Adrian's picture off the counter and held it up for the guard to see. "Oh yeah," the newcomer nodded, "Couldn't possibly forget him, carrying all those suitcases and all. He got on the two a.m. bus to New York."

"All right, thank you, that was all we needed to know," Stottlemeyer growled in relief. He rounded back on Art with a glare. "If it's not too much trouble for your mind to process, we'd like three tickets to New York on the next bus there."

"That'll be eighty-five thirty-four then," Art said matter-of-factually.

"EIGHTY FIVE BUCKS!!!???" the captain was aghast, "Where the hell do you get off with that!!?? It only cost forty bucks round trip two months ago!!!!"

"Well, you know how it goes in a recession, buddy; we've gotta raise our rates to stay afloat," Art told him calmly, "Plus I'm adding in the five dollars you'll have to pay for the brochure you just defaced."

Stottlemeyer smothered a yell, dug out his stress yo-yo, and bounced it around wildly as he rushed for the bathroom. A low strangled cry arose once he was inside. "He'll be right back in a moment," Natalie told Art, digging out her purse, "And no matter what he'll tell you, we appreciate your help on this."

"Huh?" he frowned, tapping his hearing aids.

"I said we appreciate your help!" she said louder, handing him half the money and gesturing for Disher to cover the rest, "When does the next bus to New York leave?"

"Twenty minutes, space number eighteen downstairs," he told her.

"Thanks," she commended him. "Here," she handed Disher the tickets, "Hold on to these. I've got to call Julie and tell her to drive up to my parents until we get back. I wonder why Mr. Monk went to New York?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Disher shrugged, "Maybe he saw something on the garbage overflown on Staten Island they've been talking about on the news lately and felt he had to fix it."

"That isn't funny," she frowned at him, "I just hope he's not stuck in some dark, filthy alley somewhere, just waiting for some thugs to get him."

* * *

A couple thousand miles and three time zones away in Eastbridge, however, Adrian was far from such a dire condition. Clad in one of his radiation suits, he was busy cleaning out the Scali's chimney. He'd considered vacuuming the byproducts, but since it was just after midnight Eastern time, he didn't want to disturb anyone's sleep, so his plan with the soot and creosote he was dislodging with his chimney cleaning broom was to bag it and throw it out with the rest of the garbage. Earlier he had cleaned the dishes to point where there was absolutely no chance any food stains had survived. He'd then spent a half hour cleaning every other glass, plate, and utensil in the house for good measure, even though he'd brought his own, and then rearranged everything in the kitchen in a manner that he could tell only he could understand. He'd then broken out the vacuum and given the entire downstairs a thorough run-through. Fortunately, the Scalis had taken this well, although Adrian felt it would be better to do the most intensive work after everyone was asleep, as he was now.

He trained his flashlight on the soot and carefully swept as much as he could into a plastic bag. When he could fill it no higher, he sealed it and set it aside. He repeated the process until each and every particle of soot was accounted for. Picking up all the bags--a good fourteen of them--he carried them outside and tossed them in the garbage cans. He removed his radiation suit and swept off every last bit of dust that might have accumulated on it. Then he went back inside, trudged downstairs to the basement, and tossed the radiation suit into the furnace. Thick smoke puffed from the door, but Adrian figured it wouldn't be anything detrimental.

Satisfied, he went back upstairs to what had been David's room prior to his arrival. He'd taken care to rearrange everything in it at right angles and had washed the sheets thoroughly after he'd cleaned the kitchen. Quickly he changed into his pajamas and slipped under the covers, ready for a good night's sleep at last.

Only it was at that moment that Sarah began crying loudly in the room next door. Adrian grimaced and tried to block the baby out, but she was too loud and too grating. Still, he held out for a whole three minutes before it became too much too bear. Leaping out of bed, he galloped into the nursery. "What!?" he shouted at her, "What, what is it!? Why do you have to torture me like this! Have you no shred of decency for a poor man trying to get just a little sleep!!??"

Sarah let out a particularly loud wail. Frantic, Adrian took off his watch. "You, you're feeling drowsy," he muttered out loud, swinging it back and forth in front of her face, "Your eyes are getting heavy. You're ready to fall into a really deep sleep, aren't you?"

Sarah instead cried louder. Adrian almost howled in desperation. "All right, all right!" he groaned, digging out his wallet, "I'm, I'm willing to pay you ten dollars a night until I leave if you'll just sleep soundly! How does that sound!?"

"Mr. Monk, what are you doing!?" came Rachel's voice behind him. She was looking at him with raised eyebrows, "You weren't trying to hypnotize her, were you!? She's only two, you know."

"It's never too early to lay down the law about disturbing others at night, that's my policy," Adrian countered. Rachel ignored him, bustled over to her daughter's crib, and picked her up. "It's all right, sweetheart, Mommy's here," she told her baby softly, rocking her gently, "You just close your eyes and sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep..."

Sure enough, Sarah quieted down and was soon asleep. "There, you see, you can be strong by being gentle," Rachel told the detective, laying Sarah back in the crib.

"I, I was just trying to sleep, haven't slept well the last couple of days..." he tried to say.

"Next time, just come to me if it happens again," she said. In the darkness, Adrian could make out a slightly worried look on her face. "You're, you're not upset, are you?" he had to ask.

"No, not upset, just a little worried if you're a little out of your element here," she said, "I can guess you really haven't had much experience with children, apart from that boy you adopted for a while."

"No, not really," Adrian admitted, a pang in his chest; even several years later he deeply missed Tommy and would give a lot to be able to see him again somehow, "My mother, she wasn't really the affectionate type. There wasn't much I could learn off her; certainly even less I could have learned from my father. I wonder a lot if I'd make a passable parent if the situation...if it ever..."

"Well, you'll cross that bridge when you get to it, Mr. Monk," Rachel encouraged him. She stifled a yawn. "Well, I've got to get back to bed. I hope you sleep well."

"So do I," Adrian followed her out the door, casting a backwards glance, as he half expected Sarah to start bawling again the moment her mother was gone. Luckily, however, the nursery was now completely quiet. Relieved, he returned to bed and crawled under the covers.

He was just about ready to finally doze off, however, when there came a knock on the door. "Yes!!??" he called out, resigned.

The door slowly opened. "Mr. Monk?" it was David, "I heard all the shouting up here." He came right to the edge of the bed as the detective reluctantly sat up. "Hey, I'm sorry I got all mad at you earlier over the test," he confessed to the detective, "If I hadn't put it off as long as I had, I would never have ended up trying to change it like that. And you're right; I only did it because I was afraid they'd get mad at me for almost failing."

"Well, your parents, they seem like good people," Adrian flicked the light on, "I'm sure they'd've been more understanding if you'd been forthright from the start."

"Yeah, I realize that, now," David admitted. He glanced around his room, and from the at least neutral expression on his face was at least accepting of the changes Adrian had made to it. He stared at the detective. "So, what's it really like, I mean, being you?" he asked.

"Me?" Adrian frowned. This wasn't a question he usually got, as most people seemed not to want to know how his mind worked.

"Yeah, how do you feel being you?" the boy inquired, quite interested.

"Well," Adrian's brow furled, thinking of the best way to sum up his unique existence, "At the risk of sounding redundant, it's a blessing and a curse. A lot of times, it's like I'm living in a glass box of some kind, and no one outside the box understands anything that goes on it in. I want to get out of the box, but I don't think that will happen until I find out what happened to my wife. And yet, I don't know if I can ever really be part of the world. I live by too different a set of guidelines, too different a mindset. I used to think it was all bad, but I've started seeing some good points over the years. Not that many, but a couple. I haven't confused you, have I?"

"No, not really," David told him, "I think you should see the good points more, Mr. Monk; you do a lot of good for the world."

"You, you do realize it's just a show; they take some dramatic liberties when they feel..."

"Oh I know the show's different from the real you," David said, "But even with that, I know you do a lot of good in real life too. Over a hundred bad guys put away because you took cases no one else thought could be solved. Don't think you're bad because you're different; my parents always say differences are people's greatest strengths."

"Sounds very smart; I guess it's worth a try," Adrian nodded, "Your parents, they are quite nice. Don't, don't ever take them for granted; a lot of people would kill to have people like them to look up to," his expression fell, "In fact, I'd've given anything to live in this house growing up."

"I'm sorry your own family didn't work out that well for you," David patted his shoulder sympathetically, "If I met your father face to face, I'd tell him he's a disgrace to..."

"Well he was, for a while," Adrian said, "You, you haven't seen it yet, but I met up with him a few Christmases ago, and since then he has changed for the better; in fact, you might have seen a book series on the show on shelves these days? He's the one writing it; he uses a pen name to avoid the publicity. I didn't think I'd ever forgive him, but I've come to see that I was killing myself in part by not forgiving. So don't ever bear a grudge; it eats you up inside until you're a shell of the person you want to be."

"Yeah, my dad says that too," David told him, "And I know from experience he's right." He pulled himself onto the bed next to the detective. "If I can give my own advice," he told him, "You don't have to be so afraid of change. Things happen, and you don't always have to like it, but it's better than living in a shell denying it ever happened. And like you just said with your dad, change can be good. And look at your show, too. I thought it would never work with, uh...it's Natalie, right?"

Adrian nodded. "The first couple times with her, I thought it would never work without Sharona," the boy continued, "But actually I think Natalie's a little better--in fact, if you ever let go of Trudy, maybe you should consider..."

"Hold it, hold it there," Adrian held up his hand, "First off, even with what you said about change, I am not letting go of my wife, period, exclamation point. And no, there's nothing between Natalie and me; she has her own husband to look after, dead or not, so I can't even think about what you're implying. And, I may point out, she shot me twice not that long ago, which certainly puts a dent in any relationship, real or..."

"But you won't know if you don't ask," David argued, "She cares for you, I can tell. Just think it over," he added, noticing the deeply reluctant look on Adrian's face, "Like you say, maybe someday you'll thank me later." He was silent for a minute. "I do have to ask, though, why did Sharona leave in the first place?" he asked as the phone began ringing elsewhere in the house, "It just seemed so sudden and without any really reason to me. Was that basically how it happened for real?"

"More or less," Adrian sighed, reluctant to touch on the matter both on its sensitivity to him and his sobering knowledge of how horribly Sharona had suffered at her husband's hands after his darker personality had come to the surface following their brief reunion, "And to be honest, I really don't know the definitive answer. She may never tell me. So I'm left thinking," his head tumbled, "She just couldn't stand me anymore. Wouldn't be the first time. It's a miracle she still even talks to me anymore these days."

"Now remember what I said about thinking positive," David reminded him, "It's probably something a lot less terrible than you think." He shifted around to face Adrian face to face. "As I said, I think Natalie works better as your assistant," he reiterated, "But I do miss Sharona's son more; I could identify with him a lot."

"Well, you could meet him, I guess," Adrian said, "He's got an account on that Head Face page on the World Computer Wide Network Spider Web, or whatever it's called."

"I think you mean Facebook," David stifled a laugh at the detective's computer illiteracy, "Well, I'll have to check..."

There came a knock on the door, and his father appeared in the doorway. "Better get dressed, Monk," he told the detective breathlessly, "Our phantom killer just struck again. Maybe we can break this tonight after all."

"Now!?" Adrian sighed, feeling that good night's sleep he'd been hoping for slipping away.

"Yes, now, while the evidence is fresh," Scali rolled his eyes. Adrian shrugged and opened his trunk of spare clothes. "Well, I guess it's your room again for the rest of the night," he told David, "Just, just put the sheets on straight when you wake up."

"I'll do what I can, Mr. Monk," David slid under the sheets, "Go get them. And remember everything I said."

"I'll, I'll try," Adrian said, not knowing if it was in his genetic makeup to do so.

* * *

A dozen or so squad cars were parked outside of 239 North Weed Street when Scali arrived with Adrian. Paulie was waiting for them at the curb. "So he brought you along too?" he asked Adrian as the detective stumbled out of the car, largely exhausted, "Well, any help can be appreciated. I don't think we've been formally introduced; Paulie Pentangeli, Chief of Detectives. Tony and I grew up in Brooklyn; this is my second go-round here."

"Adrian Monk, and if you ask around, you'll probably know everything you need to know about me by the time my work in Eastbridge is done," Adrian shook his hand and almost robotically gestured at Scali for a wipe. The commissioner handed one over. "So what happened here, Paulie?" he asked his associate.

"Victim's Herb Archer, eighty-nine," Paulie read off the his notepad, "Basically the killer bashed his head in with some heavy object. And like all the other cases, no one saw him leave the area; it's like he vanished into thin air."

"Well this is different, because our secret weapon here's going to find out what the dirtbag's little secret is. Go get him, Monk," Scali gestured towards the house. Adrian took a deep breath and walked into the house. Several other Eastbridge officers were milling around, taking statements and looking for clues on their own. Stan the arresting officer from earlier in the day was in fact looking behind a painting on the wall with his partner. Finding nothing, he let it go. "Hold it, hold it, hold it," Adrian walked over and straightened it out properly.

"Oh, hi," Stan greeted the detective, "Hey, I looked around and found all the articles about your record as a detective, Monk. So sorry about earlier, it's just you looked so much like Charlie the Sledgehammer. Stan Kelly, by the way," he extended his hand.

"Adrian Monk, and as I tried to tell you, I was once a cop on the street too," Adrian shook Stan's hand and dug out a wipe, "Maybe, maybe someday if I'm lucky, I'll be back on the streets if I can find my wife's killer and get reinstated."

"Well, I hope you do," Stan's partner leaned over his shoulder, "Mike Sharp, Monk; I just graduated from the academy four months ago."

"Pleasure," Adrian dug out a second wipe before he could shake Mike's hand.

"OK people, can we have some quiet please?" Scali strode into the house with his arms raised, "Quiet down so Monk can concentrate. Go ahead Monk, do your thing."

Adrian began walking around the den, making his gestures. "Archer had a dog?" he inquired, noticing the victim holding a poodle in a photograph on the piano.

"Yep," Paulie told him, "Was sitting by the fireplace there when we came in like it was in a coma. Animal control came by just before you showed up and..."

"Hold on a moment," Adrian approached a knot of officers with notepads, "Did the neighbors say they heard the dog barking at all before or during the murder?"

"Um," one of the cops checked his notes, "No, not a sound at all, just Archer groaning and the piano keys going off just after he hit the ground."

"But the piano's well away from his body," Adrian pointed at the chalk outline, "He certainly didn't hit the keys as he fell."

"I see what you're saying," Scali's face was lighting up again. He leaned over Adrian's shoulder to check the statements, then bustled over to one witness, a middle-aged woman. "You said you heard the piano going?" he asked her.

"Yes," she told him.

"Could you perhaps play out the tune you heard, as best you can remember?" the commissioner gestured to the piano.

"I could try," the witness sat down on the stool and tentatively tapped out five notes. No sooner had she finished than there was a clicking sound, and a section of the opposite wall slid open, revealing a passageway heading downwards--and a noticeable release lever on the inside wall. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," Scali rubbed her hair excitedly. "OK, Hank, John," he waved two cops over, "You guys go check out where that leads. Radio if he's still in there. Ronnie, Carmela," he signaled two more, "once they find the end, you two go there and see if you can get an idea where he might have gone."

He galloped back to Adrian and slapped him hard on the back. "Great work, my friend," he commended him, "Now it makes a little more sense. Eastbridge was a center for the Underground Railroad before the Civil War; a whole bunch of families here helped escaped slaves get to Canada; they often worked together on it. What we've got here is one of those waystations being used for the wrong purposes. We'll have to check, but I'm willing to wager all the other victims' houses were Underground Railroad stations too."

"So the killer would have had to have known about these passages' existence," Adrian reasoned, "And that most likely person is...?"

He glanced at the commissioner for any hint. Luckily, Scali clearly did have an idea. "Probably someone working for the Eastbridge Historical Society," he snapped his fingers, "They're always looking for things like this. We'll have to check it out in the morning. Plus," he added with a grin, "I get your drift with the dog too. Since it didn't bark during the murder, the killer had to have been someone it knew."

"So we've got a killer working for the Historical Society who's been in here before," Adrian mused, "It's a little unusual, but I've seen a lot stranger."

He couldn't suppress a yawn. "And now that I've broken this open, I'm going to lie down for a while," he said, tossing himself back onto the nearest sofa and closing his eyes.

"You sure you want to lay there, Monk?" Scali asked him.

"Why?"

"Well, let's just say you don't want to know what I think the dog did there earlier today."

Adrian certainly didn't. "It's on me!!" he cried out, leaping to his feet and shaking like he was on fire. "Clear a path, people!" he shouted to the cops, barrelling through them and up the stairs, desperate to take a shower.


	6. Mr Monk is Jack Bauer

Adrian found himself walking down a dark tunnel of some kind. No light at all was visible, but somehow he wasn't scared. He was, however, rather curious as to how he got there and why. "Anyone here?" he called out into the darkness, "Could, could someone shed some light on this place?"

He thought he could hear faint human voices in the distance to his right. He slowly and cautiously walked in that direction. "Keep, keep talking," he advised whoever it was. The conversation indeed got a little louder--and Adrian was surprised to hear what was apparently his own voice talking. He came to a stop and listened closer. He was still too soft to be heard clearly, but he could just make out himself saying, "The truth is, the killer is..." before his voice got soft again. "The killer's what?" he called out, "Is this about Trudy? Who was it?"

Without warning, there was a low flash of red light. Adrian shielded his eyes as it flashed again, brighter. Squinting, he could make out silhouettes before him in the flashes, one of which was his basic outline, standing and pointing a finger at a seated figure. He strained to look closer; was this in fact Trudy's killer? He couldn't make out much of the person in question, however, except for the briefest of outlines. More voices sprang up, louder, but still indistinct. Adrian caught a few more words: his own saying ruefully, "Everything you ever told me was a lie," followed by an angry roar of, "I did what I had to do!", but he still couldn't identify the speaker, even though the voice sounded very familiar. "What is this!?" he called out, "What are you telling me!?"

"BEWARE," hissed a deep low voice that sent a chill up his spine. He saw the image of a gun barrel pointed at him, followed by the roar, "You have till three to get out of my way, or I swear...!!!"

"What is this!!?" he cried outside, turning to get out of the way, but finding the gun still aimed at him no matter which way he turned. He heard himself saying, "Shoot me if you want, but I have to do what's right." Then there were violent flashes of red everywhere. Adrian shut his eyes, but he couldn't block out the bloodcurdling screams that seemed to spring up everywhere--screams that also sounded vaguely familiar...

"MONK," came a loud voice right in his ear, followed by a hand tapping his shoulder. Adrian's eyes flew open. He was lying over Paulie's desk back at the precinct, and the chief of detectives was leaning over him. "Time to get up, Monk," he told the detective, "We just brought in that guy the commish thinks may be the guy you're looking for; figured you'd like to be up for that."

"How long have I been out?" Adrian rose up, still shivering from the intensity of the dream.

"You fell asleep right after you got out of the shower," Paulie informed him, "We drove you back here so you'd be ready when the guy came in. You are ready, aren't you?"

"Just a minute," Adrian gathered up all the papers on Paulie's desk into a single stack and tapped them down so they were all lined up, "OK, I'm ready."

"He's in the interrogation room, then," Paulie gestured for the detective to follow him. Adrian couldn't suppress a yawn; even after getting to sleep, he still felt drained (a quick glance at the clock--four after seven--told him he'd gotten just over six hours worth of sleep, a bit less than he'd usually prefer). Scali was waiting by the interrogation room door, talking with a man in a gray suit. "Oh good, you're up, Monk," he greeted the detective, "Just want to give you a little background here; our friend's name's Oscar Cronenburg; he's serving sixty years for laundering for the mob. He turned state's evidence against a load of high profile figures to cut his sentence down, so he knows the inner workings of high-level crime around here better probably than I can ever hope to."

"Sounds, sounds reasonable enough," Adrian tapped the nearby air vent, "The air conditioning isn't quite right here."

"Yeah, I know, we've been having problems with that for a while now, and quite frankly, I don't really trust the maintenance people they give me," Scali sighed, "But on a brighter note before we go in, Monk, I did check while you were sleeping, and yes indeed, all the other victims lived in Underground Railroad houses, so our theories are still good. In fact..."

"Um, Commissioner, this, this is a lot more important to me at the moment," Adrian pointed into the interrogation room.

"Right, of course," Scali nodded knowingly. Adrian followed him inside. "Mr. Cronenburg, this is Adrian Monk, he's a new friend of mine, you might say, and he'd like to have a little chat with you about what you were doing eleven years ago," he told the prisoner seated across the table from them, flanked by a pair of guards. Adrian's face twisted about to see that Cronenburg had a tattoo on his left cheek but none on the right. "Mr. Cronenburg," he said loudly, staring at the convict's chest to avoid it, "Where were you in December of 1997?"

"Getting busted," Cronenburg snorted.

"I mean seriously, Oscar," Adrian turned his head so he only looked the convict in the right eye, "This is no joking matter. Before you were arrested, did you perhaps deal with someone known as the Judge?"

"Judge? I've never given anything to a judge before. Although I'd've loved to have given some cold hard cash to that numbskull who sentenced me; if it would have made him back off his dumb maximum sentence guidelines..."

"Oscar," Scali interrupted, leaning across the table towards him with a frown, "he means a man using an alias as 'the Judge,' as if you couldn't tell. Now this is very important, did you or didn't you do business with anyone going by that?"

"So what's it to you?" Cronenburg retorted with far more guff than Adrian liked. The detective slammed both palms down on the table. "Because this is my wife we're talking about!" he shouted at the convict, "I have been waiting eleven years to find this guy, Oscar; eleven years in the deepest circle of Hell! If you are in on it, and you are lying to me, I have no reservations about ripping your throat clean out of...!!"

"Monk, Monk, it's all right," Scali held up his hand to silence him. He turned back to Cronenburg still frowning. "Like the man said, he lost the one person who meant everything to him," he told the convict firmly, "Now I don't know who that is for you, Oscar, but how would you feel if that person was taken from you in one terrible moment? Now, I like to stay calm in these situations, but frankly I don't like your attitude right now any more than Monk does. So do you know anyone calling himself the Judge, yes or no?"

"No, I don't...and is there something wrong with that guy?" Cronenburg pointed at Adrian, still trying hard to avoid looking at him directly.

"No, nothing's wrong," Scali told him.

"Then can I go back to jail now? I did what you asked, and he's starting to get on my nerves."

"We're not done yet, Oscar," Adrian remanded him, "Now you said you were arrested in December of 1997; what was it for?"

"I funnelled several Gs to some guy who needed it," the convict said.

"Who!?"

"I don't have a clue, I never met the guy face to face."

"DON'T PLAY GAMES WITH ME!!!" Adrian bellowed in his face, "For eleven years I've been following phantoms, Oscar, first people with no faces or names at all, then the six-fingered man, and now the Judge. And I have had it chasing people with no names and no faces, Oscar, so I want his name, NOW!!!!"

"And I'm telling you I don't know his name!!" Cronenburg protested, "I never met the guy directly, just his intermediates, and they never told me anything about him. He needed cash, and I helped get it for him. But I heard he sent it off to some guy I had heard about before, and he skipped the country not long afterwards."

"And this guy you had heard of was...?" Adrian leaned forward in his chair, hoping he'd say Frank Nunn.

"Tommy Hartnell, a.k.a. Tommy the Trashman; he got fingered for slashing up some mob boss's driver, and he used to cash to pay for his plane ticket to Uruguay. Still down there from what I heard. What, that's not what you wanted to hear?"

Adrian shook his head glumly. "Thank, thank you for your time," he mumbled to Cronenburg. He rose up in disappointment and trudged back out into the hall, laying his head against the wall. "Hey Monk," Scali came up alongside him, "Don't be too upset; it was worth a try."

"Nothing, nothing again," the detective lamented, "All just a pipe dream."

"It's not over yet," the commissioner declared, "He may not have been much help, but there's other paths we can take. My next thought is to ask around with the bookies in town; one of them might know something."

"What's the use, I'll never find the guy; it's a miracle I'm even this close," Adrian continued groaning, flicking at loose wallpaper.

"We'll find him," Scali told him with great firmness, "Mark my words, Monk, you'll go home with all the information you'll want and more. First, though, let's move on to something that might perk you up and see what the folks at the Historical Society know."

"Certainly," Adrian forced an expression that could at least pass for happy; anything to take his mind off the latest setback, "Maybe if we're lucky..."

There came the abrupt sound of loud laughter from the corner of the squad room. "...read about this guy," the detective heard someone saying out loud, "He can barely survive on his own; he needs cleaning wipes everywhere he goes, and has to clean everything about fifty times."

There was another loud burst of laughter from the cops gathered in the knot by the water cooler. "I read about that too," another chortled, "I hear he irons his underwear every night for whatever reason."

"I heard he needs ten of everything," another could barely control himself, "Man, this guy's a walking circus clown. Never mind having his own TV show, they should but him in one of those Ripley's museums, because he's about as weird as they come."

Adrian found himself striding over to the group. He cleared his throat loudly. "Um, I'm a what, you said?" he asked, his eyebrows raised.

The officers spun. "Oh," the apparent ringleader of the clique said quickly, "Well, if you were listening in, you heard us; you're a million laughs, mister. A couple of us checked on line; they don't come funnier than you do..."

"And they also don't come more brilliant, Caruso," Scali shot him a strong glare, "Mr. Monk here was once a beat cop too, no different from any of the rest of you guys."

"Apart from the need to clean everything till it practically glows," another cop covered his mouth to block out his laughter.

"Dead serious, Rosemont!" the commissioner barked at him, "How would you feel if someone made fun of something you did!? Like, say, how you smoke four packs a day, for example!? He's a brother in blue like the rest of us, and I will not tolerate any defamation of him while he's here by anyone, including my own cops! Now I believe you all have assignments!?"

The officers hastily shuffled off. "Thank, thank you," Adrian lauded his associate.

"Nobody's going to mock you while I'm here, Monk," Scali picked up several cups from the floor and dropped them in the garbage can, "Any of my men give you a hard time, just let me know."

* * *

"I'm wondering, do you think I should use my real name in here?" he was asking Scali as they pulled up in front of the Historical Society building, "Certainly there has to be more people in town besides you that watch the show."

"Whatever you think's better," his colleague proposed, "Although I don't think many people in here get to watch TV; most of them spend all day hunched over their desks trying to find the next big discovery that'll give this mini-museum here of theirs a good name."

"And if what you two've proposed is right, someone might have killed for that," Paulie surmised. The three of them climbed out of the car and bustled into the building. Artifacts of Eastbridge's past both large and small stretched all the way to the back of the building, and yellowed newspaper clippings lined the walls. "Can I help you gentlemen?" asked the secretary on duty at the front desk.

"Commissioner Scali," he flashed her his badge, "And this is my associate..."

He glanced at Adrian. The detective thought quickly for a good alias, knowing he probably couldn't use Dr. Kroger's name again; that had likely only worked with the Olympic judges since they'd been from out of the country. "Yes, um, my name is, um...Bauer, yes, Jack Bauer," he said, frowning as Paulie almost cracked up behind him, "We'd, um, we'd like to speak to whoever's in charge of this institution, it is a police matter," he continued.

"I'll see if Mr. McKane is available," the secretary rose up and went into a door in the wall behind her. "Did I say something wrong there?" Adrian asked Paulie with raised eyebrows once she had left.

"Oh, you wouldn't understand," Paulie was still straining to keep a straight face, "It's just that, well, knowing what I know of you know, you're not..."

The door opened again, and a distinguished-looking man stepped forth. "Commissioner Scali, it's an honor to have you here," he greeted him, shaking his hand, "To what do I owe this visit?"

"Something big might be going down, Melvin," Scali told him, "I guess you've heard about those phantom murders around town lately? Well, we've found some new evidence that suggests someone here with the Historical Society may be involved, particularly anyone who's connected with the Underground Railroad research branch."

"Well, this comes as a shock to me, Commissioner," McKane did look a bit taken aback, "I am willing to vouch for my whole staff here until I see positive proof of...what are you doing!?" he shouted at Adrian, who had been opening up a binder on top of a nearby glass case and was reaching for the old newspaper article on top, "Those are over a hundred years old; you touch them and they crumble!"

"But they're crinkled," Adrian pointed out, "I have to straighten them out for you; you'll thank me later."

"No I most certainly won't," McKane snatched the binder away from him. He frowned at the detective. "Have we met before? You look really familiar."

"No, uh, you don't know me, I'm, uh, Jack Bauer, with the, uh, A.S.A.P., Fifth Division," Adrian raised his eyebrows again at the disbelieving look spreading on McKane's face, "I'm working as an informal consultant with the Eastbridge Police Department on this case. Mr. McKane, has your staff been working on any major research projects lately that would take them off these premises?"

"Well, we have been into a lot of restoring lately. Take this fire engine for example," he gestured at a model from the late 19th Century nearby, "We've been cleaning that up for a good long while now. Same with that," he pointed now at an Erie Canal boat strung from the ceiling, "Picked it up from storage in Buffalo; it was almost worn down. But the big one has been this," he waved them to follow him to the back of the building. He came to a stop by the fire exit (Adrian was pleased to see it was marked in very large neon letters) and pointed at several cases filled with arrowheads. "We've been digging these up outside of town almost non-stop for the last two months," he said proudly, "Remnants of Mohawk and Onondaga settlements in the Eastbridge area. They're almost priceless today, and we keep finding more and more everywhere. Any questions?"

"Yes, um, could, could you rearrange them in there according to size?" Adrian proposed, "They look completely out of place out of order like that."

McKane stared at him incredulously. "What department is this guy supposed to be from again?" he asked Scali.

"Never mind that, Melvin," the commissioner told him, "Now I need to ask, you have been getting the proper permits to dig these babies up, because if these arrowheads are priceless as you say, and one of your staff is the killer, he or she would have to know they'd make a fortune selling these on the black market. And if there are more deposits elsewhere in town..."

"We've followed federal guidelines to the T, Commissioner, at least as far as I know," McKane reassured him, "And that includes not digging on private property. I can even get the paperwork for you if you need verification."

"I would greatly appreciate it, Melvin," Scali nodded, "And if your papers don't match up, then we'll know something's up. His gaze turned to the other corner, where a large sculpted clock--at least fifteen feet tall, and with dials that told not only the time, but also the date, month, and lunar phase--stood grandly, with a velvet partition separating it from about four rows of seats set up in front of it. "Say, that's new," he exclaimed, striding over, "When did this come in?"

"This is our new prize attraction here, the Carmel Apostolic Clock," McKane gestured proudly at the clock, "It took William Carmel fifteen years to carve it out in the late 1800s here; there's only about a dozen or two of these left today. We just got it back from the West Coast yesterday; it was being renovated back to mint condition for the last year and a half after forty-two years in storage. Want to see how it works?"

"Don't mind if we do," Scali took a seat in the front row. Adrian took the seat in the exact middle of the row. He was intimately familiar with apostolic clocks, but decided to act surprised anyway. He watched as McKane turned the minute hand first to fifteen, then to thirty and then forty-five, during which the figure of the man in the middle of the clock aged from child to young man to old man. At fifty minutes, several frontiersmen chased a pack of Mohawks through the forest diorama on the left side of the clock while squirrels, rabbits, and other woodland creatures ambled around in front of them. At the top of the hour--during which the skeletal figure of Death struck a skull next to the man in the middle, and three angels popped out of doors on the right side of the clock and blew a fanfare on their trumpets--the clock's namesake ritual began, as Christ appeared from a door on top of the clock, and the disciples filed past him one at a time, turning to be blessed by their master. All, that was, except for Peter in the sixth position, who turned away instead, prompting a rooster on the very top of the clock to crow three times, and Judas at the end of the procession--with the devil right behind him--who kept right on going. "Marvelous, really marvelous, Melvin," Scali applauded once the procession was over and the clock had returned to normal.

"We're planning on having demonstrations every hour at the top of the hour during regular business days," McKane said, "Of course, since the clock's so old, we may have to do it manually each time to keep from wearing out the works, but if..."

"Mr. McKane," his secretary came rushing up, a manila envelope in hand, "This just arrived for you."

"Who's it from?"

"There's no return address," she gestured at the front of the envelope before walking off. "Very strange," McKane mused, tearing open the top. Adrian craned his neck to see what was inside, and was perplexed to find that the mystery mailer had only sent McKane a single piece of paper with the world REBEL written on it in big letters. "Do, do you know what this is all about, Mr. McKane?" he asked the director.

"I have no idea, Mr. Bauer," McKane said, prompting Paulie to crack up again, "I'm guessing it was probably sent here by mistake for whatever reason."

He crumpled the paper up and stuffed it in his pocket. "And I'm afraid I'll have to cut it off here, gentlemen," he told the three of them, "I do have important business to take care of, and so I wish you luck with your case."

He shook Adrian's hand thoroughly before the detective could see it coming. Adrian waved desperately at Paulie for a wipe. "Am I like going to be your official wipe handler from here on, so I know?" the chief of detectives had to ask him.

"If, if it's not too much of a problem," Adrian cleansed his hands and disposed of it in the nearest trash can, "And what is with you anyway? What's so funny about the name Jack Bauer?"

Paulie cracked up again as his cell phone started ringing. "I'll tell you in a minute, Monk," he said, hustling towards the front door and better reception. "So, see anything that could get us further along here, Monk?" Scali asked him.

"Oh yes, McKane's the one we're looking for," Adrian said, "He had mud on his shoes, the exact same kind that was in the tunnel we found last night."

Scali took a step backwards in surprise. His brow furled in thought. "Yeah, I think you're right," he mused loudly, "I saw that, but I didn't put two and two together till now. Yeah, that makes total sense; he'd know every project going on here and whether it'd be worth anything. Ergo, that letter he got just now should be significant, especially since he held onto it; if I thought I'd been handed junk mail, I'd just toss it right away. OK, so what do you think 'rebel' means?"

"Can't help you there yet," Adrian shook his head, "When we find out what he's after, then maybe we'll be able..."

"Hey Tony," Paulie came back into the museum, frowning, "I don't think you're going to like this, but that was the FBI just now on the phone."

"Oh no, don't tell me, let me guess," Scali sighed in frustration, "They don't think we're doing our job right, so they're sending in a whole squad of their most arrogant lice to try and prove they can solve this case better, am I right?"

"Bingo," Paulie nodded glumly.

"Damn, they're so predictable," Scali continued grousing, "The feds never know when to let the little guys do their work. OK, when am I supposed to meet up with them!?"

"Any minute now," Paulie said, "They'll be pulling up to the museum any moment now."

No sooner were the words out of his mouth then a very familiar horn sounded from the street outside. Adrian's heart sank. "Oh no," he groaned, taking a look out the window. His fears were confirmed, as a large metal bus slid into the parking spot in front of the museum, smashing into the car parked in front of them. "Thorpe," he realized.

"Old friend?" Scali asked, frowning at the newcomers' unorthodox entry.

"We, we didn't hit it off that well, really; he, he has a much different way of looking at things than I do," Adrian admitted, "Just, just so you know, Commissioner, he's going to tell you he's right about anything we do together. I, I do hope you're strong enough to withstand him," he couldn't suppress a shiver as the most unwelcome figure of the computer-savvy Agent Thorpe stepped down to the curb and strode towards the museum.


	7. Dealing with an Old Foe

Adrian hastily stepped out of sight beside the door. Given the rather upset earful Thorpe had given him before leaving San Francisco the last time they'd met--making it quite clear in no uncertain terms how mad he was to have his world class computers bested by the mind of a man who was, to put it mildly, a bit unusual--he had a feeling meeting him face to face at the moment wasn't the best of ideas. "Um, he's, he's all yours," he told Scali, waving him forward. The commissioner raised an eyebrow, but stepped outside anyway. "So you're the gentlemen from the FBI whose coming was foretold to me, I suppose?" he inquired as politely as he could muster.

"Thorpe, FBI," the agent greeted him without the slightest bit of emotion. He stared at the commissioner. "Say, are you the brother of that guy Markle or whatever his name was...?"

"No, no, I don't know him, never even heard of him before the papers picked up on his sick antics," Scali said emphatically. Adrian could understand why his associate was getting tired of being compared to his psychotic lookalike across the country.

"Well, anyway, we'll have this string of murders wrapped up in no time, Commissioner; my best men are in there right now plugging away on everything we've been told about the case," Thorpe told him with just a tinge of superiority.

"Well you see, that's the thing, how exactly did you guys get all the information on this case?" Scali asked him, "Because I sure don't remember calling anyone at your cozy little bureau about this."

"We have our methods, Commissioner, that's all you need to know," Thorpe said lazily, "Now, I hope we can come to the understanding of..."

"And another thing," Scali cut him off again as Adrian noticed a smudge on the nearest window and gestured for Paulie to toss him another wipe, "You didn't have to bother coming down here anyway; we've made a load of progress in this case in just the last twenty-four hours, and we'll probably have it solved ourselves in no time."

"Sure, that's very obvious, Commissioner. The fact that you let the body count get up to six victims speaks volumes about your prowess at handling this case," Thorpe cracked.

"Was that a shot!?" Scali's voice rose drastically as Adrian started wiping away at the smudge, "Now let's get something straight here...!"

"Yes, let's; I am in charge here now, Commissioner, and you're going to do whatever I...what is that sound?" Thorpe cut off as Adrian strained deeper to get the last of the smudge out, "That sounds an awful lot like...oh no, don't tell me, it can't be..."

The door to the Historical Society swung open before Adrian could make any attempt to hide. "Um, hello, Agent Thorpe," he said, forcing a wave. A deep scowl crossed the federal agent's face at the sight of the detective. "Adrian Monk," he glowered, "Why am I so not surprised!?"

"As I was saying," Scali stuck his head in the door, "I have a secret weapon working on this case for the Eastbridge P.D., and you're looking at him. And, for your information, I don't work for you if he doesn't work for me, kapeesh?"

Thorpe growled and tapped his foot as he tried to think of the best way out of the corner he was being painted in. "All right," he growled, "But we're going to set the ground rules right here; he stays out of my way, he does not overrule anything I say, and if he does anything, ANYTHING to hinder this operation, I'm having both him and you arrested and charged with whatever I can think of, is that understood!?"

"Now look...!"

"I said is that understood, Commissioner!!?? Well, is it understood!!??" Thorpe barked at Scali when he failed to immediately answer. "OK, fine, I'll play along," Scali grumbled, "But for the record..."

"Thank you, but I don't care what you have to say, because as I pointed out, I'm in charge now, and your opinion means nothing," Thorpe cut him off, "Now if you'll follow me, I'll show you what I've deduced about our killer...not you," he jerked a finger at Adrian as the detective started to follow them out the door, "You don't set foot in my truck, period, I've decided."

"So I see you're still upset about last time," Adrian couldn't help cracking a small smirk; seeing the defeated look on Thorpe's face when he'd caught the Six Way Killer had almost made up for everything he'd suffered earlier in the case (and afterwards, as it had taken almost a month to finish writing all the apology notes for the participants of the slumber party he'd mistakenly had raided). Irked, Thorpe jerked a finger at Scali to go to the van, then locked the door behind him. "Let's get one thing straight, Monk; I hate you, and everything about you," he walked towards the detective, a murderous look on his face, "They laughed at me for months back at the bureau; that was the most advanced set of forensic computers in the country, and you embarrassed me by making them all look worthless."

"Well, Agent Thorpe, you're forgetting you were after the wrong guy all along..."

"No, you're going to shut up till I'm finished talking!" Thorpe barked him. "I mean it, shut it!" he ordered as the detective opened his mouth the protest, "You will not humiliate me again. I don't care what Scali says, as of now, you have no further role in this investigation except as an observer, so you just follow us around, and keep your mouth shut at all times. You violate this in ANY way, and you go to jail, understood!!?? Well!!!???"

"I'm wondering," Adrian had to point out, "If you are wrong again with your advanced computer analysis, and I'm not permitted to put you back on the right track, how are you going to keep yourself from getting embarassed again?"

"I won't be wrong," Thorpe all but boasted, "I've got more advanced machinery this time; even your so-called supercomputer of a brain can't top what I've got now. So watch and learn how everyone who's got half a brain does it today," he walked to the door and unlocked it, "And remember, just one step out of line, and your career is over."

"I don't think there are any charges you can get to stick about what you're insinuating," Adrian's smirk remained on his face.

"I don't care if they stick," his nemesis warned him icily, "If it gets you out of my way, that's all I care about."

He stormed back over to his truck, where Scali was waiting with a frown on his face. Two large, hulking agents stepped in front of the doorway, blocking Adrian's path when he tried to follow. With a shrug, the detective unfolded his claw and started picking up litter around the truck, all the while listening to the conversation going on inside. "...this one, we fed into it the ages of the victims and the severity of the kills they received," Thorpe was explaining to Scali, "Cross-referencing that with the distance between each house where the murders took place, and taking into account the weather conditions on each of the nights in question, we've been able to create a psychological profile of your killer, Commissioner. Any questions?"

"Yeah, you don't happen to get HBO on one of these screens, do you?" Scali sounded completely bored.

"This is dead serious, Commissioner!" Thorpe upbraided him, "I'm giving you all the information you need to know to catch the killer you've failed to catch on your own. Which, given all the information available..." Adrian heard several keys being punched in, and one of the computers beeping, "...should be this guy. Look familiar?"

"Oh yeah, in fact I'd say this would be a big break, if I wasn't convinced this was Walter Matthau on your screen here," Scali still sounded bored, "And as I'm sure you know, interrogating him right now wouldn't be that successful for either of us. Well, this has been a lot of fun--in fact I'd encourage you guys to take your fun house here on the road and make a load of money off it--but I've got more important things to do right now, like catch our killer and get several hundred other perps off the street, so, have a nice day."

"Don't you walk away from me, Commissioner!" Thorpe warned him as he started to step off the bus, "I made it clear I'm calling the shots here, and you don't leave until I tell you...!!"

"You know what else," Scali had a mischievous grin plastered on his face as he turned around one last time, "You'd be perfect on Springer. I mean, the raw churning anger you're letting out now'll really wow Jerry and the audience over. Think it over, why don't you? Ta ta."

He pushed the door closed, drowning out whatever loud angry epitaph Thorpe was now shouting at him from inside. "The trick, Monk, is to know how to handle these guys," he told the detective cheerily, walking back to his car, "We just steer clear of them, they won't bother us. Now to..."

"In there, McKane," Adrian pointed in the nearest Historical Society window. Inside McKane's office, the curator was in the middle of a heated phone conversation, waving his arms and yelling loudly at whoever was on the other end of the line. "Well, looks like we rattled him good," the commissioner nodded knowingly, "I've have surveillance on him to follow up; we'll have who else he's working with in no time. But right now, let's go take care of some other business."

* * *

"Half an hour out from Davenport," announced the conductor on the bus, "That's a half hour from Davenport."

Near the back of the bus, Disher leaned over a sleeping Stottlemeyer. "Sounds like just the place you'd like to stop, huh?" he asked Natalie, busy reading a copy of USA Today she'd picked up in Denver.

"Oh I get it," she cracked a knowing smile without looking up from the paper, "Well, I never have actually been to Davenport, although the sister of one of my aunts was from Iowa. They said the..."

Stottlemeyer's cell phone rang loudly, rousing the captain from his sleep. "Yeah, Stottlemeyer here," he said into it after nearly dropping it on the floor.

"Captain, it's me," came the voice of Sergeant Joe Christie over the line (Stottlemeyer had left him in charge of the case they'd been working on while he and the others hunted down Adrian), "Thought you'd like to know, we got a solid picture from a security camera near the docks of the killer. The footage was taken about a minute after the murders took place. He's clearly got a gun in his hand..."

"Who? Who are we talking about here?" Stottlemeyer interrupted.

"We got a positive ID; it's Ike Fromann, Captain," Christie told him.

"Fromann?" Stottlemeyer's brow furled, "Oh yeah, I've heard of him. Two-bit thief, hair trigger temper, beat a murder rap a few years back. Yeah, now that I think if it, he seems the type to have pulled something like this. Put out an APB on him."

"Already done," Christie said, "No sign of him yet, though, although we found another body in a woodcarving shop several miles north of the original crime scene; the owner was run through with one of his knives, although it doesn't look like anything was taken, and we're not sure if it's connected to the dock murders yet. Anything else?"

"Yep, any idea what was in those crates those guys were bringing to shore?" the captain inquired.

"Well, some diving teams found a load of Russian nesting dolls dumped into the harbor," Christie informed him, "No clue on what was in them, though, so Fromann got away with whatever was so valuable about them. That's all we know at this time."

"Well good work," Stottlemeyer commended him, "Keep me informed, Joe."

He disconnected. "Well, we didn't need Monk after all for that," he told his associates, "We've got an arrest warrant out for one Ike Fromann, scumbag extraordinaire."

"Fromann? The Sausage King of Chicago?" Disher frowned. Stottlemeyer rolled his eyes and ignored him. "They'll have him picked up in no time if he hasn't left the country yet," he told Natalie, "So that's one less headache for us to worry about."

"I always appreciate that," she nodded.

"Now to concentrate wholly on Monk," Disher proclaimed grandly, as if he considered their odyssey some kind of grand quest, "And if my calculations are correct, we'll be right on top of him in no time flat."

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than there was a loud bang on the starboard side of the bus and it started rattling as the driver hastily pulled over to the shoulder. "Well, you were saying!?" Stottlemeyer shot him a frustrated look, one that hinted he'd known something was going to happen if Disher had said it would be smooth sailing.

"Um, well, OK, it might take a little longer than that," Disher shrugged. The intercom clicked on. "Uh, ladies and gentlemen, it appears we blew a tire here," the driver admitted, "Unfortunately all the other buses are all out on assignment, so you'll have to do some walking to the nearest terminal, which should be about ten miles to your right straight through those cornfields there."

"Ten miles in eighty degree weather through the cornfields!?" Stottlemeyer glanced wild-eyed at the high stalks before them, "With no direction whatsoever to the terminal!?"

"Well Captain, it could be..." Natalie began.

"Please Natalie, don't say it; whenever somebody says it could be worse, it always gets worse," the captain continued grousing, removing his tuxedo and throwing it over his shoulder as he fell in line to disembark the bus, "And while we're on this merry little excursion," he held up his hand at Disher, "please, for the love of God, nothing about us running into Shoeless Joe Jackson or any other dead ballplayers out here, because right now, I'm just not in the mood."

"Well, you just said it for me, sir," Disher pointed out. Stottlemeyer opened his mouth to counter, but quickly closed it after he realized Disher for once had a point. "OK then, I guess we just follow everyone else then," he pointed at the other passengers weaving their way through the corn, "And hope to God they know where they're going."

* * *

"Stand by," Scali raised his hand on the floor of the soundstage at WEBG-TV Eastbridge, "And, action."

He pointed at an undercover officer in front of a green screen. "Hey Eastbridge sports fans, ever wish you could get away from it all?" he said jovially into the camera as preppy music played behind him, "Well now you can, as WGGY Sports Channel's offering...!"

"Uh, cut, cut," Adrian walked into the shot with his arms raised. Everyone on the set groaned loudly. "What was wrong THIS time!!??" the undercover cop demanded, "If it's another complaint about my cuff links...!"

"Uh, no, those, those are just fine, but you moved up the tape marks on the floor again," Adrian drew his pen from his tuxedo pocket to loud groans and tamped the tape deliniating where flats to WEBG's consumer service show would ordinarily be placed, "There, all better."

"Uh, Monk," Scali waved him over. "Monk, the more time I spend shooting this, the more time the perps may have to skip town and not get the message I'm about to give them!" he told the detective, "And they're not going to care if his socks aren't pulled up all the way under his pant legs where no one can see them anyway, or the tape marking on the floor and..."

"Uh, good point," Adrian conceded, "You, you just finish it; I'll try and not watch, if that helps."

He stared straight up at the ceiling. "Places again," Scali called out wearily, "We'll get it right this time, guys. OK, WGGY promo, take sixty-six, roll it...and, action."

"Hey Eastbridge sports fans, ever wish you could get away from it all!?" the undercover officer proclaimed again as Adrian focused his attention on the lights above, fortunately hung in even rows, "Well now you can, because WGGY Sports Channel's offering a chance for a round trip vacation to Hawaii! That's right, Eastbridge's brand new sports channel will be holding a drawing later this week; one lucky winner gets an all-expenses paid trip to Waikiki. Finalists will be receiving their forms in the mail soon; come to the WGGY station on the day of the drawing to claim your prize. Good luck, and take pride in being able to say, 'WGGY got me!'"

"And, cut," Scali waved him off, "Great work, you guys," he congratulated the officer and the crew, "WGGY--We're Gonna Get You--" he and another plainclothes officer pointed knowingly at each other, "Is now open for business, and ready to give some lucky winners just what they deserve."

He waved over the station manager from the corner, where he'd been watching it all. "And you can put any background behind him you can generate digitally?" he inquired.

"Anything your heart desires," the station manager told him.

"Good, then we'd like a..." Scali began, but stopped as Paulie came huffing up. "Hey Tony," he breathed heavily, "We did a check on all the victims; there is a connection."

"There is? Excellent," Scali rubbed his hands in anticipation, "Tell me it, Paulie."

"Well, the one thing they all have in common is, they all subscribed to Publisher's Clearing House," the chief of detectives explained, "And you know what's more amazing? So does Melvin McKane."

"That's interesting," Adrian admitted, finally able to look back down, "So then, were their latest entry forms mailed around the time they were all killed?"

"Uh," Paulie checked his notes, "In fact, yeah."

"So McKane knew they were all getting something," the detective mused, pacing around in a circle, "Something was in those packages that no one could find before they could. Do we have any of the entry form wrappings as evidence?" he inquired to the Eastbridge cops.

"Uh, we can run a check on that," Scali said, nodding to Paulie, "In the meantime, I'll have a squad car tail McKane wherever he goes from here and see if I can get a search warrant for his house and office."

"Ac, Actually, I'd like to go along with surveillance for a while," Adrian proposed. Noting the confused looks on the men's faces, he explained, "I, it's just, it's been so long since I've been in a squad car on patrol, I do miss it, as you can imagine..."

"OK, no prob, I think we can get that arranged, Monk," Scali nodded, "Once we get the tape all finalized here, I can drop you off with whoever's drawn first shift. Just don't get yourself killed, please; we still need you to close this."

"I'll, I'll try," Adrian told him. Deep down, he felt great to be back on the beat again, even if only for a short while.


	8. Things Get a Little Clearer

"Oh, hey Monk," Stan greeted the detective as he approached his cruiser, parking across the street from the Historical Society building, "Fancy you showing up here."

"I, uh, wanted to experience things on the beat again," Adrian explained, touching the last parking meter in the long line up the street, "Has McKane done anything of note since earlier?"

"Not much except pace around his office, like something's really on his mind," Mike said, glancing at McKane through binoculars, "He hasn't answered his phone, shooed out his secretary every time she had something for him. They'll be closing up in about ten minutes, so maybe he'll try something then. Hoagie?"

He extended a half-eaten cheese and salami sandwich towards Adrian. "Uh, no thank you," Adrian stepped back, "In fact, uh, could, could the two of you step out of the car for a minute, if it's not too much of a problem?"

Stan and Mike exchanged glances, but complied. Adrian opened up the suitcase he'd brought with him (better to be prepared for a stakeout, he'd figured) and rifled around for a hand vacuum. Finding one, he crouched down inside the cruiser and meticulously vacuumed up every square inch of the front seats for crumbs. "Wait, wait, not yet," he held up his hand to the patrolmen when he'd finished. He'd noticed the odometer was only two tenths of a mile from two thousand miles. Sliding into the driver's seat and clicking on the seat belt, he started the engine and reversed backwards in the parking space as far as could be allowed, then moved forward again to the front of the spot, repeating this procedure until the odometer read two thousand exactly. A crowd of bystanders had gathered by then. "No, no need to watch," he called to them out the window, "We've, we've got everything under control here."

"Hey isn't that...?" a man started to exclaim.

"No, no, it's not," Stan said quickly, "Move along everyone, police business."

The crowd dispersed. Adrian slid into the middle of the front seat as the two officers got back in. "It's, it's good now," he told them.

"I just hope McKane didn't notice anything, Monk," Mike sounded worried, but a quick glance across the street showed the Historical Society director still pacing like crazy, oblivious to everything going on across the street. "So, Monk," the rookie cop asked after a couple minutes of silence, "What made you want to become a cop yourself in the first place?"

"Why?"

"Oh, I'm just wondering what the appeal was."

"Well," Adrian thought hard, "It, it really comes down, I think to creating order out of chaos, just like I try to do every day in every other way. When I come into a crime scene, everything's out of order. By bringing the perpetrators to justice, I restore order to the world. Just a small portion of it, but every little bit helps."

"Hmm, never really saw it that way," Stan mused, "But I guess I can see your point. We do sort of put things back together after they come apart." He crumpled up the wrapper his hoagie had been in and leaned over Adrian to toss it out the window into the nearby garbage can, but his aim was off and the wrapped fluttered to the ground. "Me," he said, groaning in pain as Adrian accidentally kicked him in the shin as he climbed halfway over Mike with his claw in hand to pick up the wrapper, "I always dreamed about being out there stopping the bad guys, helping the innocent, the ideal sort of stuff. People tend to dismiss it as too idealistic, but it still means a lot to me."

"Same here," Mike groaned himself as Adrian's knee went into his groin, "I've dreamed of being the hero, of facing down some big bad bad guy and taking him out."

"Well, hate to disappoint you, but there's pretty long stretches in actual police work where nothing really happens," Adrian just managed to get the claw around the wrapper. He gently lifted it up and dropped it properly into the trash can. "I've gone through lots of them both when I was on the force and in my years as a consultant. Both my assistants have ratcheted up their frivolous complaints during those stretches; that's why I try to carry as heavy a load as I can, so they won't keep badgering me about the money that I HAVE paid them well."

He slid back into place in the middle of the front seat. "So, do you think you'll get back on the force some day?" Mike asked him.

"I sincerely hope so," Adrian nodded firmly, a wishful look crossing his face, "My best years were as an active cop, out on the street, breaking up homicides. It would be great to be out there again. That's kind of why I'm glad to be here now, with you guys, you real cops, to get the feeling again. But I know I won't get there until I find out whoever...whoever took my wife from me."

His expression fell again. "Yeah, I read about what had happened to her when I researched you yesterday," Stan told him sympathetically, "I can't really blame you for going all to pieces; if I'd ever married, I'd want to kill myself if the wife got blown up. What did keep you from ending it then?"

"Rage," Adrian confessed, "And a feeling that the whole world was out of place, that the only way it would ever get back together again was when the killer was brought to justice, and that I needed to stay alive until that day came. That's what's kept me going for eleven years when I really should be dead and with her; I still think sometimes I should have been there with her in the car when the bomb went off; we should have gone out together, even if the bomb was meant only for her."

He sighed sadly. There was a moment of silence in the cruiser. "Yeah, I know that feeling," Stan admitted, "You know, it is really interesting that she died in a car bombing....no, not, not the way you think I'd mean that," he said very quickly when Adrian gave him a harsh glare, "It's just...well, the last couple of weeks, I've had this recurring nightmare that I'm going to die in a car bombing myself."

"Oh," the glare faded from Adrian's face.

"Yeah," Stan nodded slowly, looking rather uneasy at the very thought of the dream, "It's pretty strong and pretty consistent: I'm in the boss's office, he tells me he's promoting me to sergeant, I'm glad, everybody's glad. I go out to the car, get in, start the engine, and there's a huge blast of fire all around me, and I wake up sweating all over. I've had it about four times in the last three weeks, actually." He took a deep, uncomfortable breath. "I hope to God it's not some kind of advance warning of something that'll happen a month, a year down the line."

"I, I certainly hope not," Adrian concurred, "If there's one thing a cop can't bear to see happen much as losing a family member to crime, it's seeing a brother cop go down, in or out of the line of duty. It happened to two guys I used to know, they got shot by a drug dealer a couple years back after he'd gotten off when the evidence against him disappeared. It took us years to find it again, and in the meantime, it turned me against another cop I knew who'd brought the evidence in in the first place...but to be fair, everyone kind of turned on him, so it wasn't just me, and we did make up after he was cleared."

"That's good," Mike said, putting the binoculars back to his eyes and training them on McKane's office again, "We cops shouldn't hold grudges against each other; we need to be unified to keep the public safe at all times. The boss says that all the time."

"Well, he seems a little too idealistic sometimes, but I think he is a nice man," Adrian admitted.

"Yeah, he sure is," Stan agreed, "He stood by me a while back when the heat was coming down on me for shooting a woman in a domestic dispute...I was within my rights," he had noticed Adrian's uncomfortable look at him, "She fired at her husband; maybe I emptied a little too much into her, but the boss assured me afterwards it was what any cop in the same situation would have done. It took me a while to get back up, especially when the husband came after me for revenge, but the boss stayed with me all the way until I was back to normal, and for that I can't thank him enough. I wouldn't want any other job in the world but patrolling here in Eastbridge."

Adrian really didn't have anything to add to that. He was certainly appreciative of everything Scali had done to accomodate his stay in Eastbridge. And he did agree with Mike; all cops were brothers in arms whether they liked other or not, and they did have an obligation for unity to help the general public. "As I might have said," he spoke up, "that's why I'm here in town; I think someone connected with my wife's death's living here in Eastbridge, someone with access to lots of money. You, you wouldn't happen to have any idea of whom I'm looking for?"

"Well, you could always start with Benny Gorzo," Mike told him helpfully, "He runs a loan racket here in town, headquarters is on Eighth and Elm," he explained, "He's tipped us off before on a number of cases; maybe he can help you."

"Gorzo, did you say it was?" Adrian frantically dug a piece of paper, desperate to record this information.

"Yep, G-O-R-Z-O," Mike spelled it out for him. Adrian hastily wrote it down, then crossed it out and wrote it down again. And again. And again until he'd finally written the name without any flaws. The bells of a church up the street rang out the five o'clock hour just as he finished. Moments later, the radio hissed to life. "X-ray 12, the commissioner wants a status check of the stakeout," the dispatcher asked.

"Yeah, this is X-ray 12, they're just closing up for the night now," Stan picked up the radio, "The staff seems to all be going home. Hang on, it looks like McKane's rummaging around in his desk..." he took the binoculars off Mike, "He looks like he's holding a a tool of some kind now. He's leaving the office now...he's coming to the front door and turning around the Closed sign around...I think it's a hacksaw he's got. I'm going to get a stronger set of eyewear."

He turned to reach for a larger set of binoculars...and accidentally hit a cup of coffee in the cup rest with his elbow, knocking it over and spilling its contents all over the dashboard. "Oh God, oh God!" Adrian grimaced as the coffee dripped all over the place, barely missing his pant leg. "Don't, don't panic, I've got it," he told the patrolmen, digging out a wipe. He swiped hard against the dashboard...and accidentally activated the siren. "What are you doing!? Shut it off!!" Mike groped for the switch, "You might spook him!"

He flicked it off, but it was already too late; McKane had seen the cruiser now, evidenced very clearly from the pale expression on his face at the door. He burst outside and rushed for what was apparently his car. "Great, great, great!" Stan burst from the cruiser and rushed towards it. "Police, hold it there!" he barked, but McKane paid no heed. The curator jumped into his car and quickly pulled out into traffic before Stan could reach him. Stan swung at the air in frustration for a few second before running back to the cruiser. "Sorry, sorry, sorry..." Adrian frantically tried to apologize.

"As long as he doesn't get away, no need to Monk," Stan seemed surprisingly calm about the affair. "This is X-ray 12, suspect is now on the run from the museum, we are in pursuit," he told the dispatcher as he pulled out into traffic after McKane, "Heading west on Pine near Third. Request assistance."

"Seatbelt, seatbelt, seatbelt!" Adrian reached over Stan for the seatbelt, pulled it down, and buckled his associate in. "Van, van!!" he pointed to one coming out of a side street without warning. Stan just managed to miss it. He was starting to gain ground as McKane's car made a hard left through a red light...

...and suddenly, without warning, the car exploded in a massive fireball right in the middle of the street. Stunned, Stan just managed to slam on the brakes in time to avoid colliding with the flaming wreckage. "Call it in!" he shouted to Mike, leaping out of the cruiser and rushing towards the burning car even though there was little doubt McKane was already dead. Mike fumbled with the radio. "This is X-ray 12, we have the suspect's car burning here in the middle of Pine near Fifth from a big explosion!" he breathlessly relayed to the dispatcher, "We need fire and medical crews A.S.A.P.! Tell them to...are you OK there, Monk!?"

But Adrian's mind was no longer there. He abruptly found himself not on the streets of Eastbridge, but back in a familiar parking garage, watching another bombed car burning, and hearing an all-too-familiar voice screaming his name. "_Trudy!"_ he whimpered, extending a limp hand towards the car, "_Trudy!!"_

He stumbled forward, desperate to get to the car in time and maybe save her, but he felt arms pulling him back. "No, leave me alone!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, "I'm saving my wife, and you can't stop me! Let go of me!!! Trudy!!!!"

A sharp blast of electricity hit him in the back, sending him tumbling to the floor of the parking garage inches from the car as Trudy's screams continued. He groped frantically for the door handle, but it was out of his reach as he rolled under the car and everything went black.

When he slowly came to, there was a blurry figure in front of him saying his name. Slowly everything came into focus. "You OK, Monk?" Scali was standing over him, looking quite concerned.

"Did you save her!?" Adrian grabbed the commissioner's tie, "Is my wife...?"

"Monk, your wife's been dead for eleven years, you know that," Scali shook his head slowly, "You're here in Eastbridge, remember?"

Adrian glanced around. Fire crews were busy hosing down the last bursts of flames jetting from McKane's now junked car, and a dozen more squad cars had arrived on the scene as well. "I, uh, um..." he tried to find the best thing to say.

"I understand, Monk," Scali was nodding in acknowledgment, "I guess seeing another car go off brought back all those bad memories. Stan and Mike tell me you went completely crazy; they had to taser you for your own good, and you knocked yourself out on the curb."

Adrian glanced around. "How long have I been out?" he asked, "McKane...?"

"Dead instantly," Mike shook his head behind the detective, "And sorry we had to do it to you, but we could tell you were going to go into the car, and we couldn't risk that; the boss would have killed us if you turned up dead, right boss?"

"Absolutely, Mike; Monk's my only leverage against those loudmouth feds," Scali said.

"I'm, I'm really sorry," he apologized profusely, "If I hadn't hit the siren, maybe..."

"Don't feel so bad," Paulie came walking up, "Prelim shows whoever rigged the bomb set it to go off when he got up to fifty miles an hour. McKane lives outside of town; he'd have reached that speed anyway out on the highway, so he'd've gotten blown up either way, and then he might well have gone out with what he had with him."

"Wait," Adrian had noticed the knowing expression on the chief of detectives' face, "Did you find...?"

"We took a look through McKane's office before we got here," Scali pulled out a large plastic bag, "These were ever so conveniently stashed in his desk."

Adrian's eyes widened when he was what was inside: several nearly flawless diamonds. "He certainly couldn't have gotten those on a simple curator's salary," he mused.

"Hey Tony," the fire chief came huffing over, "Wow," his eyes went wide at the sight of the diamonds as well, "You think that's impressive? These survived the blast somehow."

He opened his palm to reveal at least a dozen rubies and emeralds. "So, now we know what Melvin was up to," Scali nodded in triumph, "And by the way, Monk, McKane also had these in another drawer," he produced another bag, inside of which were torn-open Publisher's Clearing House envelopes. "Fingerprint tests showed the victims' prints all over them. I love bad guys stupid enough to leave incriminating evidence right where we can find it."

"So now the question becomes, where're the jewels coming from?" Paulie asked out loud, "None of the stores in town here have been hit in at least three months, well before the murders started, and no other town within a thirty mile radius has either; we called around when we found the diamonds."

"So it stands to reason," Scali took the rubies and emeralds off the fire chief and bagged them with the diamonds, "That we're on the cusp of something bigger here. Otherwise, why bother with the Underground Railroad routine? Maybe the feds know something--but not those feds," he reassured Adrian when the detective's jaw twisted at the thought of going to Thorpe for information, "I have other, less air-headed contacts with federal agencies that can give me information on what might be going on here."

"But in the meantime, it looks like we're working from the bottom up with the investigation," Adrian conceded, touching all the parking meters again as they walked back to Scali's car, "McKane was the low man on the totem pole here; otherwise the killer wouldn't have done him in so brazenly in broad daylight. He must have been talking to his superior earlier like we thought. But who could he be taking orders from?"


	9. Burning Down the House

"Lieutenant, are you absolutely positive we're not going in circles!?" Stottlemeyer demanded, wiping the sweat from his brow.

"Certainly, sir, I'm pretty sure everyone went this way," Disher pointed ahead, "See the footprints there in the dirt?"

"Of course I do, Randy, and I'm about ninety-five percent sure they're ours!" the captain roared, "In fact I remember this deformed corn stalk," he pointed at it as it came up on the left, "I've remembered it since we passed it for the fourth time ten minutes ago! So thank you, Lieutenant; much to absolutely no one's surprise, you've gotten us completely lost in the middle of nowhere!"

He kicked at the cornstalk in utter frustration. "All right, all right, Captain," Natalie took hold of his shoulder, "I know you're upset, and I guess you do have good reason, especially since it's hot and we're tired, but it's really quite easy. Now for the last two hours, the sun's gone that way," she pointed across the sky. "We were heading due east when the bus broke down, so the best way to get to New York is to keep going east," she pointed in the opposite direction from which the sun was moving.

"Right, that's just what I was going to say," Disher said quickly, "Eastbound ho it is, then. Fall out."

He gestured jovially and marched straight ahead. "Of course, even with the right direction, this cornfield probably goes on for twenty miles without a break," Stottlemeyer continued grousing.

"Oh come on, you know you're exaggerating," Natalie tried to get him calmed.

"You've seen how our luck's gone so far, Natalie; I know how the natural order of the universe goes, so it'll spit right back in our faces with bad luck as long as it can," Stottlemeyer grumbled, "The truth is, we'll be walking around here for hours still, probably till after dark, and you know it."

No sooner were the words out of his mouth, though, when a loud whistle sounded not more than five hundred feet in front of them. "TRAIN!!" they all exclaimed, rushing forward through the corn. Sure enough, a set of tracks ran through the cornfields, and a Burlington Northern express was cruising towards them. "Police, stop!" Stottlemeyer jumped into the tracks and thrust his badge into the air in front of him, "Police, stop, this is an emergency!"

"Uh, Captain, I don't know if he can see your badge from that distance," Natalie pointed out, worried. Sure enough, the train didn't slam on the brakes until it was no more than a hundred feet from Stottlemeyer. Finally realizing what he was putting himself into, the captain hastily jumped off the tracks in time. The train slid to a stop several yards up the track. "What the hell do you people think you're doing!?" the engineer demanded, sticking his head out the window.

"Captain Leland Stottlemeyer, S.F.P.D!" he held up his badge again, "Are you going to New York!?"

"Yeah, why?"

"This is a police emergency, we're looking for a colleague of ours, we need a ride there," the captain explained.

"Sorry pal, company policy is no free riders," the engineer shook his head, "And don't you think you're a bit out of your jurisdiction?"

"Look, this man is more than a colleague, he's...he's really our best friend," Natalie called up, "No one from the company would have to know, so if you can help us..."

"Sorry, I don't have time for this," the engineer wasn't paying attention, "My delivery needs to be in the Big Apple in twelve hours; I can't afford to stay here much longer."

"Now look here, pal!" Stottlemeyer roared at him, "We've been walking around that cornfield for two hours, we're hot, we're very upset, and we haven't eaten all day, and if you think you can just pull off and...!"

"Yeah, yeah, all the rail drifters say that," the engineer ducked back into the cab. The whistle sounded again and the train slowly lurched forward. "Captain, Captain, don't!" Natalie grabbed his arm as he started reaching into his pocket for his gun, "That's not going to solve anything!"

"Then what is, Natalie, because right now I'll take any logical suggestions!" he roared, his hand remaining on the gun.

"Hey look, Disher pointed towards the end of the train, "There's a boxcar with the door open."

Sure enough it was. Stottlemeyer burst into a run towards it and grabbed onto the handhold next to it. "Grab on!" he called to the others, kicking the door open wider with his foot. Natalie grabbed hold and reached out for Disher as the train picked up speed. The lieutenant stumbled in a gopher hole, but managed to stay upright and grab her hand in time. Stottlemeyer strained to heave them both on board. The three of them toppled backwards in a heap on the boxcar floor. "For once, good thinking, Lieutenant," Stottlemeyer commended him.

"Any time, sir," Disher pushed the door closed all the way, "Might as well make sure they can't see us in here."

"Say, is it me, or is it rather cold in here?" Natalie spoke up. But it wasn't just her; the two policeman were shivering now as well. A quick look around confirmed why; they had chosen to ride in a refrigerated car carrying Eskimo pies. "Open the door back up, Lieutenant," Stottlemeyer ordered Disher.

"Right," Disher tugged the handle hard, but it wouldn't budge. "Uh, it seems to be stuck," he said between gritted teeth, "Anyone want to give me a hand here?"

Stottlemeyer and Natalie took hold of the handle as well, but their combined efforts made no difference either. "Didn't he say this was going to be a twelve hour trip to New York?" Natalie spoke up, worried.

"Lovely!" Stottlemeyer growled between chattering teeth, "I just KNEW something like this would happen!"

"Well, at least you won't have to complain about it being too hot anymore, sir," Disher offered, prompting Stottlemeyer to storm over to a freezer and start pounding his head off it in frustration.

* * *

"So it's a jewel theft ring all along?" Rachel asked Adrian back at the Scali house, intrigued.

"So it would appear," Adrian told her, scrubbing the doorknob to the attic in the sink. The Scalis had initially been skeptical when he'd told them he'd feel better if he washed all the doorknobs in the house, but he'd eventually convinced them--after invoking Sarah's health and her ability to grow into a normal child if her parents contacted germs on a knob--that it was in their best interests to let him do so, and had promised to screw them back in once they were dry. He lifted the attic knob out, examined it thoroughly for any grime he may have missed, nodded in satisfaction, and laid it down by the front edge of the drying rack (he'd already stacked ten knobs in a row on the rack, so it was time to start another). The flash of a camera temporarily blinded him as he started to wash the knob to the garage. "This, this is delicate work," he scolded David, standing beside him with the camera to his face.

"I just have to capture the moment," David told him with a very big smile, "No one'll believe me that this happened otherwise."

Adrian didn't quite know what to say to this. As it turned out, he didn't have to, for Scali returned, stuffing his cell phone in his pocket. "Yep, we were right, this thing is pretty darn big," he told Adrian and his family, "My contacts say they've been tracking a major international ring for the last year and a half. They think it's centered somewhere in South America, since a lot of the thefts come from there, but they've been doing a booming trade here in the States too. Shipments seem to come in through the West Coast somewhere."

"Hmm," a look of familiarity crossed Adrian's face, "I wonder...the evidence at the last murder scene I was at before I came here, that had the possibility...I wonder, could that be connected with this?"

He related to his colleague the evidence he'd seen at the scene of the dock murders. "Hmm, maybe there is some kind of connection like you say," Scali nodded, "A major shipment was on the move earlier in the week, and they seem to have lost track of it for the moment. This was a big one too; they'd gotten their hands on some major gems down in Peru."

"How big?" his wife inquired.

"Well you see, Rach, back in the 1490s, when the Incas ruled half of South America, the emperor ordered he be given the best map of the kingdom his fortune could buy," he explained, striding over to the table where Sarah was blissfully coloring away and picked up a spare piece of paper from next to her, "So his royal designers really went all out; they built a large map out of fine quality wood, about as big as the table here, inlaid the carving of the kingdom in gold, and right over top of it they set up a compass rose that also served as a sundial, they set at each direction the biggest precious gems they could find. Specifically..."

"Hold on, hold on," Adrian held up his hand as Scali started drawing compass lines on the paper. He walked over and examined it. "Crooked, I thought so," he proclaimed, seizing the pencil and erasing the lines, "Don't, don't touch it till I get back."

He bustled to the garage, picked up a T-square and rushed back. "Here," he handed it to Scali. The commissioner's eyebrows shot up at what he was being asked to do, but he gamely went along with it, drawing the rudimentary compass with the T-square's help so all the lines were perfectly straight. "Anyway, as I was saying, at each directional point, they placed the largest precious stone they could find of each kind; specifically," he started drawing above the point for north and moved clockwise around the rose, "diamond, pearl, emerald, topaz, ruby, opal, sapphire, amethyst. And each of these babies were HUGE, over thirty carats each."

"Now that's the kind of map that's fit for a king, all right," Rachel was smiling at the thought of such valuable gems in one place.

"Indeed," her husband nodded, "And the Spanish thought the same thing, because they didn't melt it down or ship it back to Spain like every other treasure they found there; they kept the whole thing in the governor's mansion for the next three hundred years or so. The Peruvian leaders did the same thing till about the Fifties, then put it in the national museum so everyone could see it. And that's where it was till last week, when the jewel ring operators broke in and ripped out the gems. So they're out there somewhere, maybe here in Eastbridge as I speak, and their cumulative value, my contact said, is well over fifty million big ones."

Adrian whistled. Apparently the whole thing was bigger than he'd thought, especially if the murders back in San Francisco were connected. Something else came back to him. "Uh, Commissioner, you, you are going to follow up on the tip I told you your men gave me about Benny Gonzo, or whatever his name was?" he inquired.

"Gorzo," Scali corrected him, "And oh yeah, Stan and Mike gave you a good one there; Gorzo knows the underworld in Eastbridge better than anybody. And we've got good reason to question him anyway; I've had a hunch for the last month he's got his hands in an extortion racket going on, so it'll be official police business anyway. So we'll check that out in the morning, after we have a great Rosh Hashanah celebration," he was starting to smile, "I guess you've never seen one before, right Monk?"

"No, no, I've, I've never believed in God, because I know he's not out there," Adrian told him. "You've all seen what I've gone through on TV," he explained to the Scalis as they exchanged glances, "Would God have let all that happen if he were there?"

"Well, he can't completely stamp out the bad times, Monk," the commissioner told him, "Not until Judgment Day, at least. But I think you might see more of his hand in the world if you looked closer."

"If you say so," Adrian shrugged. Nonetheless, he was willing to go along with the festivities; if nothing else, he'd made a promise to Father Fitzwater when he'd left the monastery. "So, anyway, then, how does it go first?" he asked.

"Well," Rachel thought hard, "Maybe the best first step would be to toss your sins into the water, and...." she gazed at the soapy sink, "Maybe that would be the best place for you to do it. Just think about whatever you might have done wrong, mentally cast them in there, and wish for good luck in the coming year, that's the basics for a beginner."

"OK," Adrian approached the sink (quite glad he would be throwing his sins into clean water) and closed his eyes. He thought back over what he might have done incorrectly over the last year. His recent outbursts against both Natalie and Marge, plus his jealousy towards his assistant during the lottery debacle (although he still felt strongly in his heart she'd been equally wrong to let the job consume her when they were in the middle of an important case and then push him aside when he'd questioned where she was going with it and if it was changing her for the worse, and he was rather miffed that to date she'd never openly apologized in turn for how badly she'd treated him as much as the other way around--although he intended to press until he got that apology). "_Uh, if you are there, take these out of_ _me_," he thought mentally to any higher being that might have been listening. Surprisingly, it was at that moment that he felt like a weight was being lifted from inside of him, and he could hear what sounded like Trudy's voice in his ear, whispering something that sounded like, "_You_ _are forgiven, and you will find out the truth by this time next year."_ A smile crossed his lips; if Trudy said it, it was probably true. "OK, done," he announced, "Now what?"

"Now it's time for some music," Rachel bent under the sink and pulled out a long curved horn--the shofar, Adrian knew from reading the encyclopedia from front to back when he was a child. "David, we'll let you have the first..."

"Uh, Rachel," the commissioner interceded, "Don't you think it would be better if Mr. Monk got the first dibs on the shofar, I mean, you know how he doesn't like blowing things when someone else has?"

"Good point," Rachel conceded, handing Adrian the horn. Even though it had not touched human lips, Adrian still pulled a wipe from his pocket and scrubbed down the mouthpiece as best he could before finally putting it to his lips and blowing as hard as he could--which still only produced a very small blast of music. "Uh, well, I, I suppose..." he tried to rationalize his inexperience.

"Not bad, not bad at all," Scali commended him nonetheless, taking the shofar from him and handing it to his son next, "Maybe with practice you'll get better with it over time, Monk."

"Well, it's just, well, like you know, I'm not Jewish," Adrian admitted, "Although I guess it's no different from the clarinet deep down. Then again, you weren't always Jewish yourself, weren't you?" Seeing Scali's eyes open up at this deduction, he pointed out, "There was the case under your bed when I vacuumed after I got back; you have your rosary and crucifix locked in it, right?"

"Right indeed, Monk," Scali admitted, "I gave Catholicism up for Rachel here, and all in all, I'd say it was a pretty darn good tradeoff."

He put an arm around his wife and planted a kiss on her cheek. "Yes, I, I do understand," Adrian shifted around in place, somewhat uncomfortable with the show of affection and the possible transmission of disease it entailed, "I gave up a lot of the things that made me comfortable for Trudy, and when she was alive," his expression grew misty, "I really didn't miss them either. I didn't care as much if things were out of place, I didn't care about going out in public during the height of cold season, and I sure didn't..."

Just then, there came a sharp pounding on the door, sending Sarah into another round of tears. Adrian jammed his hands over his ears to block her out as her father opened the door to reveal Thorpe standing there, his hands on his hips and his foot tapping impatiently. "So were were you, Commissioner!?" he upbraided Scali, "I told you to contact me the moment you found anything at all."

"Well I'm sorry, pal, but I'm as conscious of my image as you suggest I should be," Scali told him firmly, "And I'm telling you you're on the wrong path with..."

"And that's where you're wrong, Commissioner," Thorpe cut him off, "We ran a check with the information we gleaned that you refused to look at: the killer is one Samuel Norman, who lives right up on Birch Street here, I do believe."

"And that's where I know you're wrong," Scali shook his head, "Sam's completely harmless; he's run his barber shop without incident for over thirty years; he..."

"He confessed to everything when we stopped by," Thorpe interrupted again, forcing Scali into silence, "Not only that, he admitted how he did each murder, and they fit perfectly. See for yourself before you blow me off again."

He handed the commissioner a manila envelope with Norman's statement. Scali read over each paper inside with wide eyes. "Well, they match up," he conceded, "But Sam's had Alzheimer's the last couple of years; you can't really trust what he says half the time anyway."

"Just admit it, Commissioner, you're trying to whitewash the mistake you made listening to Monk here," Thorpe gestured with contempt at the detective, "You're also jealous that we solved it all in a day while you bumbled around for weeks trying..."

"I beg your pardon!?" Scali snapped at him.

"You heard what I said, Commissioner," Thorpe said smarmily.

"Yeah, we all did," Rachel stormed up to the door, rage on her face, "And you're dead wrong, whoever you are; my husband has spent hours trying to crack this case through old fashioned hard work, so don't you accuse him of incompetence. Now if you don't mind, get out of our house."

She jerked a finger towards the door. Emboldened, Adrian strode forwards as well. "You heard the woman, leave now," he told his nemesis firmly, "You're wrong again, Thorpe, and..."

"You're going to shut up now, Monk!!" Thorpe barked at him, "Turn around and walk away; you are not part of this conversation! I said turn around!!"

But Adrian shook his head, rooted to the spot. "Not this time," he said with a scowl, "I'm not your whipping boy anymore, Thorpe. Now just go."

"Why? I'm not doing anything wrong," Thorpe yawned.

"Right now, I'd say you're violating the sanctity of the American home!" Scali bellowed in his face, pointing to Sarah crying from the loud exchanges behind them, "Out in the rest of the world, you might be able to just barge in and insult anyone, but you're not in the rest of the world now, Thorpe; you're in Tonyland now, and here in Tonyland, we uphold our rights to private property at all times, especially from yarks like you! Now good evening to you, Agent Thorpe! Or should I say, your royal highness!?"

He slammed the door in the man's face. "It's OK, Sarah, it's OK," he picked up his baby and gently rocked her back to calmness, "The big bad bullheaded man isn't going to bother you anymore."

Adrian picked up the envelope and leafed through the evidence. His face narrowed. "And, you, you are absolutely sure this guy Sam Norman is completely trustworthy?" he asked the commissioner, "It says here he worked for the Historical Society part-time back in the day as well, and he and Ruth Rogers had a relationship that didn't end too well."

"Well, Sam shouts occasionally, but he's not a murderer," Scali reassured him, "We've got the right path, Monk; don't listen to what that guy says."

"Right," Adrian nodded, but deep down he wasn't completely convinced. After having lived through the consequences of incorrectly accusing Marge of murder and putting her through the wringer for it, he was no longer ready to jump immediately to any conclusions without looking thoroughly at what else was on the table. And much as he despised Thorpe, he could see from the papers in front of him that Norman had done research on precious gems in the Eastbridge area, as well as Underground Railroad projects. Thus, he'd've known about the tunnels. And it appeared he too was a Publisher's Clearing House subscriber. Could it be possible that the machine had bested his brain in the end? He couldn't bear to contemplate the hit his reputation would take if that were true.

"Mr. Monk, are you in there?" came Rachel's voice in his ear. The detective snapped back to reality. "Oh, uh, yes," he said quickly, "OK, then, what's next?"

"Hey, it's almost nine," David was looking at the clock, "That means your show's almost on."

"Oh, right," Adrian hadn't even remembered it was Friday night.

"Well then, let's all celebrate with another episode," Scali's expression brightened again. He picked up the bowls of apples and honey and carried them into the living room, "You know which one they're running tonight, Monk?"

"Uh, well, no, not really," Adrian admitted, shifting around the bowl of black-eyed peas until they all lined up right and carrying that and the bowl of spinach in as well (he stopped to get out his vacuum from the largest trunk, having a feeling he'd be needing it soon), "I, uh, sort of lost track a while back; after they air so many, you sort of lose focus a little."

"Let me check," Rachel leafed through the nearest TV Guide, "It is...Mr. Monk, Private Eye."

"Oh great," Adrian sighed. The events of that particular case had not been his cup of tea. "Not a favorite of yours?" Rachel asked him.

"Well, let's say I end up doing some things in this one I hope I don't have to do again. In fact, let me say, this episode will illustrate quite nicely," he raised an eyebrow towards David, "Why Natalie and I could never possibly work as a couple, contrary to what some fans seem to want to believe."

"We'll see," the boy clearly wasn't ready to let go of his wish as he flicked to Channel 21 just as the pre-show network bumper was flashing. Adrian sat down on the sofa, hoping that watching his exploits as a forced private investigator (he also intended some day to get Natalie to confess she'd erred in making him do that, something she still considered one of her finest moments working for him, to his intense distaste) wasn't as painful as thinking about them.

* * *

"Hold on, j-j-j-j-jewels did you s-s-s-s-say?" Stottlemeyer's teeth were chattering as he spoke with Christie over his cell phone.

"Yeah," Christie told him, his voice crackling as the cell drifted in and out of range, "We found a couple stray sapphires and jades there on the bottom of the bay. And we've got a second shooter. Are you all right wherever you are, Captain?"

"Oh j-j-j-j-j-just f-f-f-f-f-fine," the captain struck another match and touched it to the meager pile of burning papers he, Natalie, and Disher were huddled around on the refrigerator car's floor, "G-G-G-G-Go on."

"His name's Doug Schlorf; we found he worked with Ike Fromann a lot," Christie informed him, "We found another camera picture from a trawler moored nearby that showed a man fitting his description running away from the crime scene. We traced Schlorf to a motel near Skywalker Ranch, and he confessed everything: Fromann hired him to help knock off the victims and take their shipments; Schlorf told us he'd even opened a few dolls and saw the jewels inside."

"So where're th-th-th-they n-n-n-n-n-now?"

"He doesn't know," the sergeant said, "He says Fromann took them all and told him they were for the man who hired him."

"And th-th-th-that is..."

"He wasn't told," Christie shook his head, "Fromann wasn't in the flophouse he lived at when we tracked him down; the manager said he'd left the night after the murders, saying he wanted to spent some more time back east. In fact..."

Static filled the phone. "Joe? You still there?" Stottlemeyer called out. There was no reply. "Out of range," he grumbled, shoving the cell phone back in his pocket.

"I'm s-s-s-s-surprised it lasted this l-l-l-l-long," Natalie rubbed her hands together hard over the gasping flames, "S-S-S-So any idea where we're supposed to l-l-l-l-look once we g-g-get to New Y-Y-Y-York?"

"I know an old c-c-c-c-contact that might be able to h-h-h-help," Stottlemeyer told her, "We m-m-m-m-met a couple of months before Monk h-h-h-h-h-hired you, when we were after W-W-W-Warwick T-T-T-T-T-T-Tennyson. Actually, he wasn't that much help; m-m-m-m-m-more of a hindrance, actually, but he's all I c-c-c-can think of offhand."

He buttoned up the rarely-used topmost button on his tuxedo and shivered noticeably. "H-H-H-How much f-f-f-f-f-further do you s-s-s-s-suppose it is to the Big Ap-Ap-Ap-Ap-Apple now?" he asked his associates.

"I th-th-th-th-think we're probably p-p-p-p-past Indianapolis by n-n-n-n-now," Disher spoke up, "D-D-D-Don't worry though, C-C-C-Captain, it's possible they might pop the d-d-d-d-door to check on the ice cream b-b-b-b-b-bars at some point."

"I certainly h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-hope so," Natalie scrunched up on tighter ball, trying to keep her legs unexposed to the cold (needless to say, she now regretted wearing a skirt for the day). "B-B-B-But at least we won't g-g-g-g-g-go hungry if it t-t-t-takes longer than we think."

She gestured at the freezers of Eskimo pies all around them. "N-N-N-Nice, but I find it c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-cold c-c-c-c-c-c-comfort, Natalie," the captain grumbled. "What!?" he demanded at Disher as the lieutenant burst into laughter.

"G-G-G-Get it sir, c-c-c-cold comfort?" Disher pointed out, cracking up again. Stottlemeyer rolled his eyes in disgust and hunched closer over the fire. "If M-M-M-Monk's living up the g-g-g-good life in a nice warm b-b-b-bed while we freeze like this," he muttered out loud, "I'll k-k-k-k-k-k-kill him myself!"

* * *

Adrian was back in the dark tunnel. The red flashes were going on around him again. This time, though, he could pick up a little more, although nothing that would explain what he was seeing. He heard himself now saying, "This could have been avoided if you'd just told her the truth sooner," which was succeeded by angry chatter he couldn't make out. Then a voice shouted after more turbulence, "What do you care!? You were always their favorite anyway!!" before abruptly falling back below his range of hearing. Everything else was too low to make out, although the gun that appeared before him at the end was more solid than before, and its discharge was louder and more frightening before he jolted awake again. He was puzzled. What could the dream be trying to tell him, if anything? It was still far too vague to understand. Perhaps Dr. Bell could be of help when he got back to San Francisco.

At any rate, he needed to take care of things in the bathroom. He trudged out of David's room and into the bathroom. He took care of his bladder, then dumped liquid cleaner he'd placed next to the toilet down it and scrubbed bowl as best he could. Satisfied, he got up and walked back into the hall, but noticed the light was on in the master bedroom. He approached it, all the while not wanting to disturb the Scalis. "...really bothering me about this, Rach," he heard the commissioner saying inside, apparently pacing back and forth, "Just because McKane's dead now doesn't mean the murders won't stop. For all we know, there could have been another killer out there, and if there's still other people in Eastbridge who've received jewels through PCH and haven't told anyone, anyone could be fair game. And suppose that lamebrain Thorpe's right and it is Sam Norman?"

"Well what do you think in your heart?" Rachel told him encouragingly.

"I don't believe him, but maybe I should look into it anyway; I could tell Monk wasn't completely convinced either earlier." He let out a loud sigh, "And, I forgot to mention earlier, the mayor and city council want a status report from me tomorrow after lunch. Sure, we've made a lot of progress since Monk showed up, but they're starting to get impatient; they won't be happy until I make a big arrest. If this goes on much longer without closure..."

"You'll get closure," his wife told him again, "Who else cracked the case of the King Killer when no one else would?"

"The King Killer, Rach? I don't know if Ed ever went by that when Neville took over his mind those times."

"Well you know my point," Adrian could hear her put her arms around him and could visualize the smile on her face, "You're one top cop who always gets his man. And you know why, right?"

"Oh of course," glee was practically oozing from Scali behind the door, "'Cause I've got...personality..." he broke into song.

"Talk..." she joined in the chorus.

"...personality..."

"...walk..."

"...personality..."

"...smile..."

"...personality...."

"...charm...."

"...personality..."

Adrian couldn't take it anymore. It was too happy for him to bear. He slumped to the floor and started sobbing. The bedroom door swung open. "Mr. Monk, are you all right?" Rachel asked him, deeply concerned.

"Oh, it's, it's just..." he sniffed, "It's too happy in here. Too perfect."

The Scalis exchanged confused glances. "Uh, OK, and...?" the commissioner inquired.

"It hurts...it hurts being around people so happy like you two clearly are," the detective admitted, "Knowing it'll all get smashed some day."

"Smashed? What do you mean smashed?" Rachel asked him, still confused.

Adrian looked at her firmly. "Oh, I've seen it happen all the time," he said, "Unions always crumble in the end, either by one's own fault or someone's evil acts. I've seen it all the time: my own parents, Trudy and myself, Natalie and her husband, Sharona and hers, the captain and his; it all goes wrong in the end somehow. So don't...I'm just trying to be helpful, remember that...you may be happy now, but I've come to see happiness always gets shattered in the end, so don't get too happy, because you'll either hate each other's guts some day, or one of you will die a horrific death."

He lowered his head. For a moment there was silence in the hallway. There was a rustling as Scali stooped down to the detective's level. "Hey Monk, I understand where you're coming from," he told him softly, "I know it hasn't been easy for you or the people around you. But you can't just assume things will always go wrong because they seem to be going right. In fact, Rachel and I just celebrated our silver jubilee not that long ago. I know also the media tends to report more when things go bad than when they do work out, but I just want you to know, you can't give up on happiness just because it never seems to work."

"Yeah, you can't run away from the joys in life," his wife added, "You won't appreciate them if you do that. Happiness isn't something you should be afraid of, Mr. Monk. Sometimes it might not last, but till then, embrace it and enjoy every minute of it. I'll bet you'll feel a lot better if you do."

"Well, maybe," Adrian shrugged. Deep down, though, he could see their point; he just felt it might be a little too hard for him to take that jump. "Well, thank, thank you anyway," he told them, "I, I'm going to have a drink before I go back to bed."

"No problem," Scali nodded, "And look, if there's anything we can do to make your stay here happier, just let us know."

"Um, I'm not getting on your nerves by...uh...doing what I normally do?" he asked them; this had been gnawing at him for a while.

"No, not at all," Scali said quickly, "Believe me, Monk, I've had worse experiences with house guests before; that whole stretch when Rachel's brother lived here strained the nerves to no end."

"Tony!" she elbowed him in the side. "Well he did," he protested.

"Uh, thank you, thanks again," Adrian said quickly, eager to get out of there in case things did go sour. He shuffled downstairs to the kitchen and pulled a bottle of Summit Creek out of the fridge. He flicked on the light and started drinking. There was a low sigh from the living room sofa. "What are you doing up at this hour?" David sleepily asked him.

"Oh, just, just thirsty," Adrian said quickly, not willing to go into detail about his emotional ordeal, "So, uh, you did like the show tonight, then?"

"For the most part, yes, but honestly, I didn't really like that new woman at all," David admitted, "She seemed too much of a stalker to me. Was she like that for real?"

"Ac-Actually, it was a little worse than that," Adrian told him, a shiver running up his spine at the thought of Linda's gross deception to him and everyone, "About a year later, she killed her real estate partner to keep the business. I didn't want to believe it; the captain very much didn't want to believe it, but we proved it true in the end, and she's serving fifty years to life right now."

"You know, I'm not really that surprised at all," David apparently had no remorse for Linda whatsoever, "Too bad for Captain Stottlemeyer though; after what he went through the first time with..." an uncomfortable look crossed his face; Adrian could tell divorce was foreign to him from having lived in such a happy family. "What I mean," the boy continued, "It must have been hard for all of them having to go through that. I mean, it could have been avoided if..."

"Um, sorry, but I'm starting to think after several years of reflection that it would have happened anyway," Adrian told him solemnly, "The Captain and Karen are just too different for it too have worked; really, I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. And they do seem to be somewhat happier now that they have newer lives to start again...well, for the most part," his face scrunched up in discomfort; the popular (though definitely not critical; just about every review he'd read had been scathing) acclaim of directing two successive successful movies had apparently started reinflating Karen's ego again over the last few months, for recently she'd reversed course from her softened stance following the Nicholas Hallett affair and had been demanding higher alimony payments from her husband again, which of course had gotten Stottlemeyer increasingly worked up again over it. The detective decided not to let David know this, however; he kept it private from most people outside his circle anyway.

"Anyway," he took another swig of Summit Creek, "You might also be interested in knowing we're going to be putting together a big show celebration for the fans sometime in the near future. The producer thought it might be a nice idea, and now we've got a location locked down and funding set up. Perhaps if..."

He suddenly stopped. "Do you hear that?" he asked, holding up his hand.

"Hear...?" David stopped in mid-sentence as the sound grew loud, as if something was being pressed against the door. He rose up off the sofa and reached for a flashlight. "Who's out there?" he called out loud.

It happened in an instant: there was a bright flash of light, followed by the smashing of the window and a huge burst of flame as the carpet caught fire. Oh God!!" the boy gasped in horror. "FIRE!!" he cried out loud up the stairs as a second Molotov cocktail smashed through the window and ignited the sofa.

"Go, go warn them!!" Adrian could barely contain his own horror at what was going on. He rushed to the door, but the knob refused to turn, confirming his worst fear: the arsonist intended to kill everyone inside the Scali house. He glanced quickly out the window, but could only make out a dark blob moving around towards the kitchen window..._the kitchen_...

There came the sound of more glass breaking. Adrian barrelled into the kitchen and saw an even more horrifying sight: the arsonist had tossed in a grenade this time. He frantically ran back into the living room and opened the suitcase with his claw, fumbling with it as he rushed to unfold it. Time was ticking. He almost tripped rushing for the grenade, but managed to stay upright as he picked it up, threw open the fridge, shoved out as many bottles of Summit Creek as his arms could manage, dumped the grenade into the egg tray, and slammed the door shut--only to reopen it and twist the grenade around perfectly upright before shutting it again and diving for cover behind the sofa. Much like it had the time Natalie's house had been hit with a grenade as well, the fridge smothered most of the explosion, but a stray jet of flame escaped between the bolts and lit up the curtains. Adrian coughed as smoke started filling up the downstairs. He picked up several bottles of Summit Creek, unscrewed the caps, and tossed them at the flames, but it wasn't enough--they sputtered briefly, then started burning harder than ever, right up the wall and across the ceiling.

"Monk!" came Scali's panicked voice coming down the stairs. The detective waved his arms frantically through the smoke until Scali's outline appeared. "No good, they barred us in!" he explained as calmly as he could muster. Scali ran to the kitchen door and yanked it hard, but it too was jammed shut. "Damn!!" he shouted, fear rising in his voice. He grabbed the phone next, but his expression only got more terrified. "And he cut the line, too!" he cried out.

"TONY!!!" his wife screamed from upstairs, followed by the sounds of more windows breaking and the roar of additional flames. "Don't breathe the smoke in, Rachel!" he cried back, seizing Adrian's hand and dragging him upstairs, "Get in the front bedroom, and start tying some sheets together!!! Oh God, oh God, oh God!!!" he whimpered in clear fear under his breath, and Adrian couldn't blame him at all; the rug was burning, and flames were raging through the nursery, although mercifully Sarah could be heard crying inside the master bedroom, safe for at least the moment.

The rest of the Scalis were hunched low to the floor in the master bedroom, coughing and terrified. "Did you see who did this!!??" Rachel all but screamed at Adrian when he and her husband appeared.

"No, sorry," he coughed, waving his arms around wildly in the air as if that would clean it of the soot clogging it, "And we're trapped in here; he jammed all the doors shut and cut the phone line! And I think half my luggage got burned up already!"

"Forget about the luggage right now, Monk!" Scali slammed the bedroom door shut and stuffed a towel under the crack to hold the fire at bay, "Right now we've got to get out of here the hard way!"

He hefted the chair from his desk and drove it through the window. "Sheets!!" he gestured to his family. Rachel hastily tossed a rough sheet ladder to him. "Tie off that end to the bed!!" he commanded, tossing the other end out the window, "Women and children first!!!"

Thick black smoke started pouring through the keyhole as Rachel carefully climbed out the window with Sarah firmly in hand. Adrian knew they probably had no more than two minutes at most before the flames would come through and consume them like they'd already consumed his belongings. Still, he could perform one last civic duty for the house before it was incinerated. Holding the deepest breath he could manage, he started picking up window shards from the floor and dropped them in the garbage can. "Monk, there's no time!!" Scali begged him, helping his son out the window next, "Your turn now!"

"No, you go next!" Adrian shouted at him, "You've got a family; they can't afford to lose you!!"

"Monk, there's no time to argue; the world can't afford to lose you!!" the commissioner shouted at him over the deafening pops of every window in the house exploding from the heat of the fire, "Now come on, get out there!"

"I can't!" Adrian shook his head, coughing harder than ever, "Look at it this way; if I don't make it, I'll be with my wife again! Your wife's down there; you need to be with her!! Trust me on this!!!"

"All right, all right!!" Scali conceded the point. He started to climb down the sheet ladder--but came to a hard stop halfway out the window and started squirming around frantically. "Dad, come on, what are you doing!!??" David cried up to him from the lawn.

"I'm stuck!!" he shouted, twisting in every direction, "Monk, do something!!"

"What!!??" Adrian could hear the flames burning away at the door.

"ANYTHING!!!" the commissioner screamed desperately at him. Adrian thought as hard as the situation could. There was only time for one real solution. "This, this might hurt a little," he advised his colleague, backing up towards the door.

"MONK, HURRY!!!!" Rachel's cry was as loud as a peanut whistle. It was drowned out quickly, however, by a low blast as the flames crashed through the door and raced like lightning up the bedroom walls. Adrian didn't have time to make any last minute calculations. He lowered his shoulder and charge headlong at the window. He collided hard enough with Scali to jar him loose--and send the two of them toppling head over heels through the air into the bushes below. Adrian coughed loudly and slowly helped himself up. Apart from a sharp stinging sensation in his back from the impact, he seemed to be all right, and apparently so was Scali, who got up and rushed to his family without any clear sign of injury. "Are you all right!?" he asked them breathlessly, hugging them all out once.

"What about you!?" his wife was gasping in relief.

"I'm all right, Rach, we're all safe now," there was limp comfort in Scali's voice, and Adrian understood well why. He trudged out of the bushes and joined his patrons in staring blankly at their house burning beyond control as the scream of fire engine got louder up the street, wondering who would be twisted enough to have tried something like this.


	10. Framed

"Forward nice and easy," the yard supervisor inside the largest railroad yard in New York City waved the train up to the unloading platform, "That's good, stop."

With the hiss of its brakes, the train did just that. "Bring it up," the supervisor waved forward a refrigerated truck to the side of one of the boxcars. "OK, let's unload the manifest," he called to a pair of burly workers waiting nearby. "So anyway," he started conversing with the larger one as they groped at the boxcar's handle, "The TV arrives for the wife, but I find it's too big to get through the door. I have to call the construction crew down the street to borrow their crane and lift it in through the window. They nearly had to cut a hole in the wall, but it got through in the end, and when I got my wife came in and found it, the first thing she said was...WHAT THE HELL!!!???"

He and the others jumped back in shock as Stottlemeyer, Natalie, and Disher jumped rapidly out of the boxcar. Blue in the face and with icicles having formed in their hair, they hopped around shivering in the morning light. "Ex-Ex-Ex-Ex-Ex-Excuse me," the captain asked the wide-eyed men, "Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh-Where's the nearest ph-ph-ph-ph-ph-ph-ph-phone!?"

"Uh, in that building over there," one of the loaders pointed numbly, "What were you people doing in there in the first place?"

None of Adrian's associate answered. Half-hopping since their legs were locked up with numbness, they stumbled over to the building. "Heat," Disher moaned in delight, flinging himself over a radiator, "I th-th-thought I'd n-n-n-never be warm again."

"Ph-Phone," Stottlemeyer stumbled over to it and dropped in a quarter. "You have reached the N.Y.P.D.," came the automated message on the other end of the line, "Please hold; your call is very important to us."

"Oh obviously," the captain rolled his eyes as elevator music began playing, "Sh-Sh-Should have expected nothing less from our dear friend Captain Cage anyway, given he k-k-k-kept holding us at arm's length last t-t-time anyway."

"Well, doesn't look like Monk's done anything b-b-b-big here," Disher was leafing through the copy of the New York Times that had been left on the windowsill, "Nothing about him in here at all. What do we do while we're w-waiting?"

"Keep looking," Stottlemeyer hefted a phone book from the shelf under the phone and handed it to Natalie. "Natalie, find the Port Authority's number; give them a call once I'm done here--and my guess is it'll probably t-t-take all day with this--and see if anyone there saw Monk get on another bus somewhere. I think we're probably pretty cl-cl-close to him now either way."

* * *

Adrian glumly tapped at the blinds on the window in Scali's office. The sun was glowing through the window, but it wasn't making him, nor the rest of the Scalis, huddled dismally around the office, any brighter about what had happened the previous night. While the fire department had successfully put the blaze out, the Scali's house was wrecked and would probably take a couple of months to rebuild. Deep down, the detective felt somewhat responsible, particularly if it turned out the person who funded Trudy's killers was the arsonist. He'd done a rudimentary check of the property once the fire was out, and had been able to determine the arsonist was the same person as the peeping tom from the other night, as the newcomer had left similar footprints in the dirt, but that was all he could figure out on his own.

"Well," the commissioner broke what had been a long silence in the room, "Eight o'clock. Might as well get to work today." His tone was gloomy and depressed, and Adrian really couldn't blame him. "Of course, if no one's up to going anywhere, I understand; you can stay here if you want."

"No, I might as well go," Rachel spoke up, "Can't disappoint the kids. Let me know what you find about this, Tony."

"Right," he gave her a kiss.

"But no covert protection," she raised a finger in his face, "I don't want unmarked units following me everywhere I go because..."

"Don't you worry about that, Rachel; I learned my lesson from that time; I won't put anyone on you without your consent," he nodded, adding a second kiss, "Call when you get there and when you're leaving, though."

"That's fine," she said, turning to her left, "Are you up for school, David?"

Her son didn't answer. He hadn't spoken a word, in fact, since they'd left the house, and was now merely staring straight ahead with a blank look and moist eyes. "I guess that's a no," his father reasoned. Concerned, he squatted in front of his oldest child. "David, I know this was pretty hard to take," he told him softly, "Anyone in our situation would feel the same way. But we can rebuild it, and we will rebuild it. And I will catch the guy who did this, so don't you worry about it. You can stay in here till we get back; just look after your sister for us, OK?"

David managed a weak nod. His father leaned forward and hugged him. Adrian felt jealous deep down; he'd have given a lot to have been in a family where actual physical contact with each other was allowable. "OK Monk, let's get going then," the commissioner broke the embrace and waved at the detective, "As you can see, we've got a long day ahead of us."

"Right," Adrian rose up and followed him out of the office. Once he was sure they were out of earshot of anyone else, he blurted out, "I'm sorry."

"Huh?" Scali came to a stop.

"I, I just have the feeling this was all about me, that's why...it happened," he admitted, "I didn't mean to bring this down on you all, and..."

"Don't you worry about that, Monk; this isn't your fault," Scali told him firmly, "And even if it is the guy you're looking for, look at it this way: he's just guaranteed himself life without parole for this."

A deep scowl crossed his face at the thought of the arsonist still running around out there. Adrian nodded firmly; he wanted to help bring the offender in any way he could. "So, where to first now?" he asked.

"Fire Chief Bailey said he'd have a full report in by eleven, so first let's go hunt down Benny Gorzo and see if he's got any information for you," Scali said. He came to a stop in front of the locker room. "Your attention please," he announced to the officers dressed for the day (Adrian quickly glanced towards the ceiling and shuffled in place uncomfortably; being this close to undressed men made him feel like throwing up, and all his vomit bags had unfortunately burned up in the fire), "We are on a mission this morning to bring in our dear friend Benny Gorzo for his extortion crimes. At this time we'll take any volunteers to come along on this excursion."

"Sure boss, count us in," came Stan's voice from the back, "And if there's anything we can do about last night too...you OK there, Monk?"

Adrian was anything but OK. "Uh, I, I think everyone needs to...I think most of us would appreciate it if you all dressed right now and..."

"Hey Monk, too uncomfortable being around real men?" snickered a cop in the back, prompting laughter among several others.

"OK Caruso, I told you to lay off him!" Scali bellowed at the offending officer, "That'll be a five hundred dollar fine, and a hundred dollars for everyone else who laughed! Not quite as funny now, is it!?" he inquired as the locker room went deathly quiet.

"Five hundred!?" Caruso sounded shocked, "For pointing out the guy can't take a joke!?"

"Of course not; now it's a thousand!" his boss berated him, "Care to try for more!?"

There was dead silence in the locker room. "Thought so," the commissioner said gruffly, "OK Stan, get your stuff together; meet us in the garage in ten minutes."

"Thank, thank you for choosing round-numbered fines," Adrian thanked his associate as they walked away.

"If that's what it takes to make them lay off you, so be it," Scali said firmly, "I tell them all the time...now what?" he'd noticed Adrian recoiling as he pressed the button for the elevator, "Oh, yeah, these things are eighth or ninth on your fear list. Well, the stairs it is, then."

* * *

Paulie was already at the back door of a decrepit-looking bar as Scali's car and Stan's cruiser slid up alongside him. "Family's all right?" he asked his superior worriedly as he got out of the car.

"No injuries, thank God," Scali told him, visibly relieved, "Thank God Monk here and David were on the ground floor at the time and saw the fire bombs get thrown in the windows, or it might have killed all of us in our sleep. Gorzo's in there?"

"Been on surveillance since six; he came in about six thirty," the chief of detectives told him, "Heard him on his cell with an extortion client who's going to pay him fifty grand. As luck would have it, he's in there now paying it off."

"Wonderful. Mike, you got the warrant?" Scali asked the rookie cop, who held up a slip of paper. "OK then, let's go do it," the commissioner grabbed the doorknob and threw it open. Adrian grimaced at the loud music blaring from inside. He took note that the beer bottles behind the counter had also been stacked incorrectly and made a note to take care of that before they left. Scali stormed over to a sleazy-looking man wearing an over-sized tuxedo and Hawaiian shirt with no color coordination whatsoever, who was seated at the counter taking a large pile of cash from a nervous-looking businessman type. "Well, well, it appears the First National Gorzo Bank's still open for business despite repeated complaints from its customers," he greeted the man smugly.

"Oh, uh, Commissioner Scali," Gorzo gulped nervously, "Uh, this, this, um, this isn't what it looks like..."

"The Commissioner? Oh thank God," the businessman breathed a sigh of relief, "He threatened to have my mother beaten up unless I paid up for a loan he gave me to cover my daughter's wedding last month."

"Thank you, that'll go great on his resume that the judge is going to read pretty soon," Scali gestured for Stan to draw his cuffs, "You're going out of business for good this time, Benny, and don't expect any bailouts to come your way."

"You've got to be kidding, Scali!" Gorzo protested as he was cuffed, "How many times have I gotta tell you, I don't...!"

"Uh, sir," Adrian spoke up, waving at the bartender, "Do you happen to have any spare cleaner on the property here? I lost mine in a fire last night."

"Huh!?" the bartender stared at him incredulously.

"Well, might as well stock up somewhere," the detective reasoned, continuing on even though the bartender was already walking away, shaking his head, ""If, if you could, could you fix the counter top here? I can tell it hasn't been washed in a while."

"Wait a minute, you brought that defective detective guy here for this!?" Gorzo was wide-eyed, "What, you're going to have him shine my shoes over and over until I confess, Scali, is that it!?"

"Maybe," Scali leaned closer to the bookie, "Actually, Benny, maybe you can do him and me a favor. You see, Mr. Monk's here in town looking for a hot tip on his wife's murderer. So I figured, you've been around, you know all sorts of people in your racket, so if you can enlighten him on anything, maybe, just maybe, I'll tell the judge to give you extra brownie points at your sentencing."

"How should I know anything!?" Gorzo protested, "I never saw the guy before in my life!"

"Well, as it is, we're looking for a moneylender like yourself with this," Paulie informed him, "So we were just wondering if you knew anyone who had ten grand to burn eleven years ago."

"I don't keep track on the competition! I have enough to worry about without...don't touch me!" Gorzo screamed as Adrian leaned towards him with his tweezers. The detective reached into Gorzo's shirt pocket with them and pulled out a used tissue. "You'll thank me later," he told the bookie, dumping it in the nearest garbage can behind the bar, "Now, if, if you'll please remove that shirt, it's contaminated."

"WHAT!!??" Gorzo's jaw hung open.

"And if you could, burn it when you're done, and bag the remains," Adrian continued, "We'd be willing to bury them far from civilization for you."

"Why just the shirt?" a devious look was crossing Scali's face, "If he put used tissues there, Monk, it stands to reason he put them in his pant pockets too."

"Why are you looking at me like that!?" Gorzo gulped louder.

"Because we care that your life may be in grave danger," Paulie had picked up as well, "Your pants are diseased, Benny; the quicker you get them off, the better."

"You can't be serious!!" Gorzo had picked up their drift, "You can't do that!"

"Oh can't we?" Scali grinned at his suspect, "We all know Monk can't work properly if something's bothering him, and right now, I'd say your nasal fluid-contaminated pants are wrecking concentration here. Stan, would you do the honors please?"

Stan nodded and reached for Gorzo's belt as several large and burly patrons in the bar gathered around and cheered him on. "All right, all right!!!" Gorzo shrieked frantically, "I'll tell you everything I know!"

"Very good, Benny, I knew we could talk some sense into you," Scali patted him on the back, "And...?"

"OK, an old pal of mine, Ernie Rackers, he had worked with some guy with six fingers before," Gorzo related to them, "About eleven years ago, he told me he'd heard from the guy again, and he'd said to thank someone here in Eastbridge called 'the Baron' for his generous donation of ten grand, or something like that."

"Where's this Ernie Rackers now?" Adrian pressed him.

"Oak Grove Cemetery; he was killed in a mob hit five years ago," the bookie told him, "And I can guess you don't want to go through the trouble digging him up to interrogate him, right?"

"Never mind that," Scali glared at him, "Who is 'the Baron?'"

"How should I know!?" Gorzo all but screamed at him, "Rackers only gave the name, nothing about the guy! That's all I know, I swear! Now please just take me to jail; this guy's making me very nervous!"

Adrian was still hovering over him, tweezers in hand. "Yeah, I guess we're done," Scali conceded, "Stan, read him his rights, and let's get out of here."

"Should, shouldn't we burn his pants anyway, just to make sure?" Adrian asked.

Gorzo shrieked and rushed for the door amid disappointed sighs from the other bar patrons. Stan and Mike ran after him, shouting his Miranda rights out loud. Adrian pocketed the tweezers. He felt mixed; again he'd been disappointed and left with only a faceless name, but at least it was the step in the right direction. There was still one more thing he needed to take care of, though. He slid over the counter and started stacking the bottles properly, with tallest on the bottom and smallest on the top. "Hey!" the bartender barrelled over, "Get your hands off those!"

"You'll thank me later," Adrian told him.

"Out of here!" the bartender grabbed for the bottle in the detective's hand. It went flying through the air and crashing into a beer glass on the counter, spilling it onto a big bearded man sitting behind the counter. Livid, the man rose up. "You!" he hissed at Adrian.

"Uh, accidents happen?" the detective gulped.

With a roar, the man swung a punch at him. Adrian ducked at the last second, and the fist slammed into the face of another big hairy patron sitting next to him. "Why you...!" this man bellowed, picking up his chair and smashing it over the first man's head. Howling and rubbing his head, he picked the second man up and flung him down the bar--straight into two other men. Loud indignant shouts rose up from all corners of the bar. "OK, everyone calm down!" Scali called out, flashing his badge, "We don't want any more trouble here than...!"

He was cut off as a beer bottle crashing into his head. With loud indignant cries, a free for all broke out throughout the bar, with irate patrons slugging, kicking, and breaking everything in sight over each other's heads. Adrian dropped under the bar and covered his head, wishing he still had his brooms and vacuums with him. There came a low plop next to him. "Well, looks like you started World War III in here, Monk," Paulie told him, rubbing a large bump on his forehead.

"Well, if he'd stacked the bottles properly," Adrian gestured at the bartender, biting the arm of a punk trying to choke him, "This wouldn't..." he grimaced as a shower of glass rained down on him from the counter top, "...it probably wouldn't have come to this."

Paulie merely shook his head as he dug out his radio. "All units, this is Pentangeli, the Commish and I are in the middle of a scuffle in the Red Light Bar, Nineteenth and Maple," he told the dispatcher, "Please send backup immediately."

* * *

Backup did arrive about ten minutes later, by which time the bar had been completely wrecked. Adrian helped to stretch a liberal amount of police tape (in nice even rows) across the door after the last brawl participant had been led out by the authorities. "We'd, we'd better tell the city when we meet with them this afternoon they need to tear this place down," he told Scali, still holding an ice pack against his head from the melee, "It's clearly beyond repair in there now, and certainly they'd be better off with a more...cheery place here."

"I'm sure they would, Monk, but after what happened in there, I think we're going to need it just a little while longer till we get all these guys charged and setenced," Scali groaned, "And not that I'm complaining, but next time, at least ask someone first if you want the bottles arranged properly so we don't end up having these things breaking out."

"He was ignoring me," Adrian pointed at the bartender, being loaded into the last cruiser, "What else was I supposed to do?"

Before Scali could answer, Paulie jogged up. "Council president was on the horn, Tony; they want a report at eleven now," he told his superior.

"That's fifteen minutes from now!" Scali glanced at his watch, "I always tell them to give me an advance heads-up when they change these things! Oh well, thanks anyway. Let's get going Monk; clearly our work here is finished."

Adrian nodded and climbed into the car with him. "The Baron," he mused as they pulled out into traffic, "I suppose that doesn't mean anything to you, does it?"

"Nope," Scali shook his head, "Never heard of anyone going by that name in this town. And Benny's description was a lot vaguer than I'd hoped. Still, it's something. We can look through the files back at the precinct after I get this out of the way; maybe there's something in there I missed at some point."

Adrian nodded. The rest of the ride over to City Hall was fairly quiet. The two of them walked briskly up the stairs to the second floor and down a long marble-guilded hall to a pair of oaken double doors with about three minutes to spare before the council's new deadline. "You wait out here, Monk," Scali gestured at a bench, I don't think this will take much more than ten minutes or so."

Adrian plopped down on the bench. He was especially pleased that the floor had recently been polished, and the walls looked fairly spotless. The doors closed behind Scali, largely muffling out the conversation inside. Adrian glanced up and down the halls, which were largely empty despite it being a rather busy time of day. He mused back over the tip he'd gotten. What could "the Baron" possibly refer to? Someone who was part of a royal family of some kind? The head of a crime syndicate? A master in some kind of financial field? The possibilities seemed endless, and Adrian couldn't bear to stomach having to track every possibility; he'd be in Eastbridge for months at that rate, and he'd have preferred to get back to San Francisco as quickly possible before he got everyone too worked up about his disappearance. Come to think of it, he hadn't adequately thought out how to explain his absence to his inner circle. He'd basically hoped a quick note that he'd gone after one of Trudy's killers would cut it, but after an absence of this length, perhaps everyone wouldn't be as accommodating.

Something else caught his attention: the large metal New York state seal hanging above him was decidedly crooked. Sighing, he climbed up on the bench and pushed at the seal. It wouldn't budge. He strained with all his might...

And regretted this when the seal abruptly broke off the wall and crashed hard to the floor, shattering into countless pieces. The effect was immediate: the doors of the council chamber swung open, and distinguished-looking men and woman rushed outside. "Oh my God!" shrieked one councilwoman. She glared accusingly at Adrian. "That's almost a hundred years old! It was hanging in this building since it was built! What the hell did you do to it!?"

"Almost a hundred years old, and nobody noticed it was crooked?" Adrian countered, "I, I suppose you did bother buying a replacement copy to go along with it just in case this happened?"

"Replacement copy!?" a gray-haired man was incredulous, "Who do you think you are!?"

"It's Adrian Monk," a younger councilman recognized him, "THAT'S your secret weapon, Scali?" he called into the room, "A TV star!?"

"Uh, yeah," a clearly embarassed Scali walked out of the room and into the hall, "As I was saying, I've had a secret weapon on this case lately, and you're looking at him right now, ladies and gentlemen. And this is the real deal, the real Adrian Monk, not an actor."

"OK, so if he's as good as you say, how come you still haven't arrested anyone, Scali?" a bespectacled councilman demanded, "I talked to those gentlemen from the FBI this morning, and they say you refuse to listen to anything they..."

"The FBI is wrong, Tom, you'll have to trust me on that," the commissioner pleaded with him, "Sam Norman is not a killer, and Monk here and I intend to prove it by all means possible."

"Well we need results quick, Scali," the bespectacled councilman told him firmly, "Specifically in the next forty-eight hours, or we will be happy to give in to their demands for total control over this investigation."

"You can't do that!" Scali protested, "This is our case, our jurisdiction! You hand them total control, you set a terrible precedent for...!"

"All in favor of Mr. Redgrave's proposition to Commissioner Scali?" the councilwoman who'd been first out of the chamber spoke up loudly. Every hand shot up. "There you have it," she told Scali, "Your forty-eight hours start now. This meeting is adjourned. And make him clean that up."

She gestured at Adrian with a certain amount of disrespect. The council members walked off down the hall. Rolling his eyes, Scali bent down next to Adrian. "Why did you have to give them ammo like that!?" there was no small amount of frustration in his voice as he helped the detective pick up the shattered pieces of the seal, "They think I'm nuts now to be using you as a consultant! You know, you don't have to fix everything that's out of place in the world."

"But I do have a moral obligation to take care whatever is in my control," Adrian countered, "Who's the one with the glasses just now?"

"Tom Redgrave, council president, why?"

"Oh, nothing really, except that his shoes match those worn by the arsonist last night, and the peeping Tom earlier in the week," the detective told him. Scali did a huge double take. He stared after the councilman as he disappeared into his office. "And he's got gasoline on his shoes," Adrian added.

"Basic ingredient in Molotov cocktails," Scali realized. His face contorted. "But do you have anything other than that, Monk? Tom Redgrave's a very prominent man in this town; we'd better be absolutely sure we can prove he's the guy if we want to bring him in."

"That's, that's all the positive proof off the top of my head," Adrian told him. Scali sighed and put both hands to his face. "Well, let's see if we can get any more," he said, gesturing for Adrian to follow him, "And please, for both our sakes, no matter how tempted you might be, try to keep your hands to yourself in here; guilty or innocent, we can't afford to tick Tom off, so promise me you'll hold it?"

"Uh, promise," Adrian nodded, hoping he could follow through. Scali walked towards Redgrave's office and knocked on the door. "Come in," came the gruff reply. Redgrave was sitting behind his desk, inserting miniature flags of India and Spain into holders next to the lamp. "Can I help you?" he asked them with raised eyebrows.

"Oh, nothing too much, except, Mr. Redgrave, we were wondering, where were you at around midnight last night?" Adrian inquired, trying as hard as he could to ignore the fact that one of the blinds on the window was crooked.

"Asleep, like any decent person in this town would be. Why?" Redgrave glared at him suspiciously, "Are you insinuating something, Scali!?"

"No, not officially, Tom, we're just trying to cover a load of bases at once," Scali said quickly, "You probably heard that my house got torched last night; we're trying to see if we can find anything about that too."

"Well like I said, I was asleep at the time, but I wish you luck in finding the monster who did that," Redgrave said with at least a sense of sympathy.

"Well, we might be somewhat closer than we think," Adrian said, fighting the urge to pull at the flags until they were no longer crinkled, "I should point out, Mr. Redgrave, you do have gasoline on your shoes; the fire last night when it first started burned in a manner similar to a gasoline fire."

"Well I was barbequeing yesterday, Mr. Monk, that's what normal people do on nice days like yesterday," Redgrave told him haughtily, "Now will there be anything else!?"

Before Adrian could answer, there came a sound akin to thunder tramping loudly up the hall. The door to Redgrave's office swung open hard to reveal Thorpe and his men, and from the look on his rival's face, Adrian had a sinking feeling that what the man had to say wasn't going to be pleasant. "All right, Monk," the agent growled, anger seared on his face, "Turn around and face the wall; you're under arrest!"

"Wait a minute, what's this...!?" Scali demanded.

"You're going to shut up and stay out of this, Commissioner; you're in big trouble too as it is!" Thorpe upbraided him, "I said turn around and put your hands behind your back, Monk!"

"Not until you tell me what's going on," Adrian countered.

"I don't have to tell you anything, now turn around and face the wall, right now!"

"I won't...!"

"I SAID TURN AROUND!!" Thorpe grabbed him by the collar and slammed him face-first into the wall, "Don't fight me, just keep your hands still! You have the right to remain silent, anything you...!!"

"You heard Monk, what's going on here!?" Scali roared right in Thorpe's face.

"Your friend Monk killed Sam Norman this morning," another agent explained matter-of-factually, "Walked right up and shot him as we were transporting him to interrogation."

"That's a lie!" the commissioner bellowed, "He's been with me all morning!"

"You don't fool me, Commissioner," Thorpe derided him, "You were jealous I cracked the case before you did, so you killed my suspect for revenge."

"Now look here...!!!!"

"We've got it on tape," a third agent hefted a cassette, "Take a look for yourself if you don't believe us. Do you mind, sir?" he asked Redgrave, gesturing at the VCR atop his TV.

"Not at all," Redgrave nodded. The tape was popped into the VCR atop the television set. Adrian's eyes widened as an exact double of himself walked up the hall towards Sam Norman as he was being led into an interrogation room and emptied seven rounds from a Walther into the barber before anyone could do anything and vaulted sideways out a window. "That's not me!" he protested, "Do you think I'd honestly be capable of going through plate glass like that!?" Something else struck him. "It must be the guy who looks like me, what was his name?" he all but begged Scali.

"Charlie the Sledgehammer," Scali realized, "Yeah, this is exactly the type of hit that he'd..."

"Ah, cut the crap, Commissioner," Thorpe barked at him, "Just admit it; you wanted revenge, so you told Monk to kill Norman so you'd wreck my case!"

Scali sputtered in rage. "I don't know who you think you are, mister, but how a twisted psycho like you ever got to be a field agent when you don't bother checking any facts that don't match up with your view of...!!" he bellowed.

"That does it," Thorpe shoved the commissioner to the table, "That's contempt as well as aiding and abetting a murderer, and it'll be easy to prove you planned it."

"You can't prove any of that!" Scali roared as he was cuffed.

"I've got all the proof I need on here, Commissioner," his arrester gestured at the tape, "You're going down big for this. In fact, this'll be front page news in this state," he smirked at Adrian with sick triumph on his face, "The mighty Adrian Monk, a cold-blooded killer after all."

"They've tried to paint that story before," Adrian pointed out, hoping he could find some way to get some sense through to Thorpe, "People are already tired of that."

Well, they're going to get it rammed down their throats, then," Thorpe hauled him to his feet. "Were they bothering you in any way?" he asked Redgrave.

"In fact, they were badgering me about something, I couldn't really understand a word they were saying," Redgrave was smiling darkly.

"OK, that's harassment then, too," Thorpe dragged Adrian towards the door, "Let's go, Monk, you've got a place in a federal pen reserved just for you and your friend here."

"You're making a big mistake!" the detective made one last chance to reason with his rival, "I'm about seventy-five percent sure the man in there is your killer! You let him walk, there could be more murders!"

"Murders that will be on your names because you incarcerated the people who could have helped stop them!" Scali shouted as well.

"I SAID SHUT UP, YOU FAT FOOL!!" Thorpe yelled at him. Scali visibly simmered and looked ready to attack his arrester at a moment's notice. As they exited the building, Rachel abruptly came barrelling up. "Let him go!" she ordered Thorpe. "I'm sorry, Tony, they came to the school and demanded I tell them where you were," she told her husband, "I told them you couldn't possibly have ordered Sam Norman murdered, but they wouldn't listen to me..."

"And why not? You'd have every reason in the world to protect your husband," Thorpe said dismissively, "Now get out of here, lady, or I'll have you booked too for interfering with a government..."

In a flash Rachel grabbed the gun off a nearby agent and trained it on Thorpe. "I said, take the cuffs off the both of them, right now!!" she bellowed at him.

"Rachel, Rachel, don't," Scali pleaded her, "I appreciate you care that much, but it won't do David and Sarah any good if both of us are behind bars. Just let it go; we'll get out of this, they've got no solid evidence against us."

"You sure?" she seemed reluctant to drop it.

"Come on Rach, for our kids' sake?" he begged. Rachel slowly lowered the gun. "I'll call the best lawyer I can find," she said as he and Adrian were loaded into the back of a federal paddy wagon, "We'll get this cleared up, somehow."

"Not when it's cut and dry, you won't," Thorpe snickered, "He's headed for prison for at least the next forty years."

"Well, at least it'll be a round number," Adrian sighed.

"Can I at least give her a goodbye kiss?" Scali asked as the doors to the paddy wagon were being closed. Thorpe growled impatiently and glanced at his watch. "Ten seconds, and no funny stuff," he ordered. Scali climbed outside, waited for the agent to unlock his hands (although this man kept a gun trained on him), and embraced his wife. "I'll be home sooner than you think," he mumbled through tears, rubbing her hair.

"OK, time's up," Thorpe snapped his fingers at his subordinate, who pulled Scali away, recuffed him, and tossed him back in with Adrian. The detective turned away so he wouldn't have to see Rachel's heartbroken expression as the doors were locked and the paddy wagon pulled out into the streets with sirens blazing. There had to be some logical way out of this fix, but offhand, he couldn't really think of what it could be.


	11. Escape

"I'd, I'd really appreciate switching to another transport vehicle," Adrian called through the viewhole of the FBI van, "This containment area's thirteen feet by nine feet; it's no good at all."

"Just cork it back there, Monk," snapped the guard in the front passenger seat, "Thorpe's given us strict orders to ignore anything you say and take you straight to jail without stopping, so just put a lid on it."

"Transporting prisoners in a vehicle with odd dimensions is a federal offense, really," Adrian argued as the viewhole slid shut. He shook his head and turned towards Scali, staring with a grim expression towards the small barred window on the back of the van. "Again, I'm, I'm sorry you had to be dragged into this," he said softly, "I, I would have argued for them to let you go if..."

"I've got only one thing to say to you, Monk," Scali said solemnly without turning around.

"Go right ahead, I can take it," Adrian sighed glumly.

"Hairpin."

"Huh?"

"Turn," the commissioner opened his fist to reveal Rachel's hairpin in his hand. "You've sent my life around a hairpin turn," he added, a wry smile crossing his face.

"Oh...oh," Adrian nodded in acknowledgment. There was a clicking sound as Scali inserted the hairpin into the handcuffs and unlocked them. Dropping them gently on the floor, he released the detective as well. The two of them hustled to the door. "Too small," Adrian whispered measuring the size of the gap between the bars, "We'll never get to the lock."

"Well then, guess we'll have to do it the hard way," Scali removed his watch. He laid it on the floor and stamped down hard on it, shattering it loudly. "Hey what's going on back there!?" the agent demanded, slamming open the viewhole.

"Broke my watch," Scali told him innocently.

"Well too bad," the agent snarled, "You'll have to wait till we get to prison to get another!"

The viewhole slammed shut again. "What, what exactly is the plan?" Adrian had to ask his associate as he unwound the watch string from the wreckage. He maneuvered the broken glass from the watch into one pile with his foot as this happened.

"Houdini once escaped from a Siberian prison wagon this way," Scali explained softly, "No reason it can't work now, too."

He bent down in the corner and started sawing the watch string against the floor along the walls. Adrian wished he'd had a bag available to pick up the dust, but he gamely suppressed any urge to meddle with the commissioner's plan. Pretty soon, Scali had sawed a large section of the floor up. "Now we wait for some kind of loud noise," he whispered, "We'll need it to cover up what we need to do next."

"Try making that edge a little longer so it's the same as this one," Adrian pointed at the cut line along the door. Scali ignored him and leaned against the door, waiting. The minutes ticked by. Then there suddenly came the blaring of a train whistle. The van started slowing to a stop. "Now," Scali whispered as another blare started up. He gave the cut piece of floor a sharp kick, denting it downwards to form a rudimentary ramp. "Come on," he whispered, plopping down on top of it and sticking his feet down the hole.

"Are you crazy!?" Adrian hissed, "I'm not sliding onto a filthy, dirty roadway!"

"Do you want to go to jail instead!?" his associate raised his eyebrows. He slid down the improved chute onto the road as the van lurched to a stop, apparently blocked by the train, which could be heard chugging in front of them. Adrian sighed and sat down. Closing his eyes, he pushed himself down the chute to freedom. Hopping up, he turned around glanced down his pant leg. "Great, fresh oil!" he groaned out loud; the black streaks showed proof of a recent road paving. Too late, though, he realized the error of this, for apparently the agents had heard him despite the train's rumbling. "Hey!!" the driver shouted out the window. Adrian heard a rifle cocking. "Uh," he glanced at Scali, already halfway up the road and running, "Now where!?"

"The woods, Monk, and quick!" Scali waved him to the trees on the side of the road. Adrian didn't need a second hint. He broke into a full rush to safety as a shotgun blast zinged by him, followed by the squealing of tires as the van reversed from the tracks, then drove directly after him straight into the woods. Adrian pushed past trees, hoping he wasn't stepping into mud or worse. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Scali waving him from the cusp of a hill to his right. The detective put on an extra burst of speed and dove over the side, huddling with his associate inside a small indentation. "Now what?" he asked.

His question was answered with a deafening roar as the van toppled over the hill to his left and tumbled head over heels to the ravine below with a loud crash. Adrian grimaced from the impact. "Strange, really," he remarked as he and Scali rose up, "They probably would have been better off leaving the van and chasing us on foot."

"Exactly," Scali nodded, bustling down the hill to the crash site, "Must have been a pair of green recruits. Well, no skin off our teeth. But better just make sure..."

The driver was starting to crawl out of the wreckage, dazed and with a cut on his forehead. Scali quickly grabbed this man's gun from its holster and trained it on him. "Hands up!" he barked, "Same with you!" he repeated the threat to the other guard. Both men very promptly complied, the guard obligingly tossing his gun away. "Handcuffs, now!" the commissioner ordered them. Both men tossed them to him. Scali handed one pair to Adrian. Knowing what he was supposed to do, the detective walked over to the guard and handcuffed him to the door of the wrecked transport. "You think you can get away from us!?" the guard derided him, "Thorpe'll have a dragnet out on you two in no time!"

"Yeah, well, what he doesn't know right away won't hurt him," Scali shot out the transport's radio, "But don't worry, guys; sooner or later, he's going to find out you didn't arrive with us, retrace your steps, and find the two of you botched the whole thing. After me, Monk," he gestured the detective towards what Adrian surmised was the northwest, "We still have a lot of actual police work to do."

* * *

"Nice to see you again, Captain; Lieutenant," the familiar figure of N.Y.P.D. Captain Walter Cage shook their hands as he entered their office in his precinct, "And the lovely Miss Teeger; I've really heard so much about you."

"Thank you, I appreciate it," she smiled, "And Mr. Monk mentioned you a couple of times for your help in finding the man who built the bomb that killed Trudy."

There came a low snort from Stottlemeyer. "Is there something wrong, Captain Stottlemeyer?" Cage raised an eyebrow at him.

"Oh, nothing," Stottlemeyer said quickly, mouthing silently towards Natalie when Cage's back was turned, "_A lot of help he was back then_." "Our question is," he continued, "have you seen or heard from Monk at all?"

"Well, nothing's come through my desk so far," Cage shook his head, "And knowing him, if he had done anything of note, it would have been all over the wires." He picked up a box from his desk. "Donuts?"

"Boston cremes?" Disher eagerly grabbed an handful and wolfed them all down at one. His superior rolled his eyes. "We're not here for snacks, or at least most of us aren't," he said firmly, "Now you're absolutely sure you've seen or heard nothing about him?"

"Positive."

"Swear on your life, because as I recall, you weren't exactly forthright with us when it came to Tennyson!?" Stottlemeyer raised his eyebrows as far as they could go. Cage growled in aggravation. "Look, I've told you before, the feds have fairly strict guidelines," he explained as calmly as he could, "If I had gone against that, I could have..."

"Uh," Disher raised his hand, donut crumbs spilling from his mouth, "How about we put out an A.P.B. throughout New York, just in case he is still here?"

"Actually, that's a pretty darn good idea there," Cage nodded, reaching for a pencil and paper (Stottlemeyer's eyebrows had gone up again, realizing Disher had actually come up with a good idea for once), "Could you give his description?"

"You don't remember?" the lieutenant frowned.

"Oh, I remember, it's just so I can tell my compatriots in blue what to look for."

"Well, if you insist," Stottlemeyer sighed, "He looks like..."

"LIKE HE'S WANTED BY THE POLICE!!" Natalie's loud gasp echoed through the office. She thrust the newspaper she had picked up from Cage's desk into her associates' faces. FAMOUS DETECTIVE ARRESTED FOR MURDER, ESCAPES read the headline over a somber picture of Adrian. Stottlemeyer hastily skimmed through the rest of the article. "Eastbridge," he mused out loud, "How far is Eastbridge from here!?" he grilled Cage.

"About two hours due north by bus," Cage told him.

"Natalie, you know the drill, Port Authority," Stottlemeyer told her. Natalie rushed out of the office with her cell phone. She returned about four minutes later. "Last bus of the day leaves at five," she told them.

"It's ten to four now," Disher glanced at his watch, "Plenty of time."

"Plenty of time!? Near the start of rush hour!? Randy, we've got to move if we want to get there in time," his superior upbraided him.

"So you're leaving already?" Cage seemed disappointed that they were departing as soon as they'd arrived.

"Don't worry, we'll tell you how it turned out," Stottlemeyer shook his hand and bustled towards the door, "And thank you for actually being helpful for once."

"Huh!?" Cage frowned.

"Oh nothing," Stottlemeyer's voice faded as he rushed across the bullpen. Disher, however, returned. "Uh, are you done with those?" he asked Cage, gesturing at the donuts.

"Take them if you want," the New York cop shrugged, "They weren't my flavor anyway. By the way," he asked when Disher turned to leave again, "How is it coming with his wife's case these days?"

"Oh, we're getting closer," the lieutenant admitted, "We've gotten past the six-fingered man now, and we're looking for..."

"RANDY!!!" his superior dragged him impatiently out the door, donuts and all, "You want to know everything!?" he called in parting at Cage, "Tune in Fridays at nine like everyone else in America does these days!"

* * *

"Here we are, I know where we are now," Scali said as the sounds of cars grew louder.

"Thank God," Adrian breathed a sigh of relief; walking around in the woods with mud at every step and snakes perhaps lurking around every corner had him on edge. They trudged up a hill to find themselves facing a sign reading WELCOME TO EDGARS MILLS. "This is only about sixteen miles or so from Eastbridge," the commissioner explained as they rushed across the highway towards a diner and garage on the other side, "So first thing we do," he huffed to a stop by a pay phone outside the diner, "Is let the right people know where we are and see what they might have found out while we were away."

"And hope they aren't tracing this call," Adrian had noticed several hubcaps stacked incorrectly near the garage, but decided to let it go for the moment and leaned close to the phone as Scali dialed away. "Paulie, it's me," he said softly into the receiver.

"Tony, where are you!?" the chief of detectives demanded softly on the other end of the line, "The feds are going stir crazy since you and Monk got away; Thorpe's marshaling all his resources to bring you in. I can't even really talk right now; he's in the other room putting together a battle plan to get you again."

"How about with the murders?"

"His big fancy computers have brought up a new profile saying the killer's between 35 and 50, Caucasian, and trained in special forces; just your basic for any professional killer."

"OK Paulie, here's what I want you to do," Scali instructed him, "If Thorpe the nut's there like you say, tell him you've got a tip that I'm in, oh, say, Groverton, and that you're sending a unit over there to check on it. Since you'll say it's just a lead, it won't be your head when they find I'm not there. Then once they're all gone, send another unit here to pick me and Monk up. Let Rachel and the kids know I'm fine without endangering them, OK?"

"You got it," Paulie whispered, "Oh, and Tony, how DID you and Monk get out of this one?"

"Well Paulie, a magician never reveals his secrets, you know that," Scali told him with a wry smile as he hung up. The smile quickly faded, though. "Wonderful, he muttered, "They're turning my town into a police state. We'll be lucky if we get in undetected."

"But we'll need to if we want to solve the case, since our killer's there," Adrian trapped the hubcaps between his knees and twisted about until they were all lined up right.

"So you're absolutely sure it's Redgrave?" Scali grilled him.

"I'm pretty sure now, all we need is positive proof," Adrian told him, "But we're getting there; on the table behind his desk, there was a picture of him with a guy I knew from San Francisco named Ike Fromann; he's killed a couple of people; his usual M.O. fits the dock murders before I came here. In fact," he wiped the phone against his pant leg--since it was already ruined from the road oil, no point in showing any mercy with it--"I'd like to make a call of my own to see what else the captain's found out since then."

He inserted his own quarter and dialed the precinct's number. "San Francisco Police, Homocide, Sergeant Christie speaking, how may I help you?" came his former partner's voice.

"Joe, it's me, Adrian...Monk, I've..."

"Monk, where are you!?" Christie hissed excitedly and worriedly, "The captain's been out looking for you since you disappeared."

"He is? Natalie?"

"Yep, her and the lieutenant too."

Adrian hissed himself in frustration. "They don't listen to me!" he grumbled over his shoulder at Scali, "I tell them very clearly I don't want to be followed, and they come after me anyway! You can tell your son that's another reason I"m not marrying Natalie: she didn't listen after I faked my death, and she's certainly not listening now, when the Judge and whoever the Baron is could well be...!"

"Monk, you still there!?" Christie called from back in San Francisco. Adrian put the receiver back to his ear. "Yes, uh, Joe, I've been wondering, how've you been doing with the dock murders, before everyone pulled up stakes and decided to hunt me down?"

Christie related to him everything he'd told Stottlemeyer earlier. I see," Adrian nodded when he'd finished, "Well, if the captain or Natalie or the lieutenant calls, just tell them I'm all right for now, and they don't need to worry, I'll be back soon."

"You sure, Monk? It's all over the papers you may have killed someone."

"It's a mistake, Joe, just like last time with the six-fingered man," Adrian said loudly, disgusted that Thorpe had taken the news to the national papers, "I'll, I'll call again when everything's wrapped up and I'm on my way back. And again, thank you for everything."

He slammed the receiver down on the cradle. "No one ever listens to me!" he continued grousing, "If they show up here and one of them gets killed by Redgrave or the Baron, it'll be their own faults for ignoring me!"

"Well Monk, you know they're coming for you because they care for you," Scali pointed out softly, "I think you should be glad they'd care that much for your safety."

"Whatever," Adrian shrugged. Scali apparently saw this was a moot battle to fight at the moment. "So, find out anything useful back home?" he inquired.

"Some," Adrian related what Christie had told him. "OK, let's recap what we've got here," the detective mused when he was finished, "Tom Redgrave's part of an international jewel smuggling ring. Let's assume he's gotten his regular shipments through PCH like the victims. Only the victims started receiving them as well somehow, and he needed to kill them to keep it covered up."

"That has me wondering," Scali remarked, "whether his suppliers knew he was up to something and tried to double cross him. If you're right that the murder of those guys back in San Francisco by your thug Fromann and his pal Schlorf is connected to this, maybe it was a double-double cross. So if that's right, maybe the syndicate people who got whacked sent some of the jewels to the people here in Eastbridge the same way they'd sent it to him normally."

"Redgrave wanted the most valuable jewels for himself," Adrian reasoned, "The imperial Incan jewel collection first and foremost. He must have had Fromann forward them to him some way covertly, some way that ties in with the Historical Society, because I'll bet he promised Melvin McKane a cut of the profits if he brought the jewels in safely and killed the victims for him--only he had no real intention to share it with McKane and had him car bombed to make sure he wouldn't get them and wouldn't talk. Now our question becomes connecting him with Fromann and Charlie the Sledgehammer and proving he hired Charlie to frame me and get us off the case."

"Let's just hope Charlie hasn't skipped Eastbridge already," Scali lamented, "It's not out of the question he might try a couple more murders once word got out we escaped to keep the heat on you."

Adrian certainly hoped that wouldn't be the case. A long stretch of silence passed as the two of them waited for someone to come by for them, Adrian all the while glancing nervously around, half expecting Thorpe to have been listening in on the call to Paulie and have them surrounded with federal units in no time. Fortuitously, however, the first car to approach the restaurant was an Eastbridge P.D. cruiser with two familiar men behind the wheel. "Stan, Mike, glad you could make it," the commissioner greeted his men, deeply relieved, "You weren't followed?"

"Not at all, boss, we checked," Stan told him, climbing out, "Those feds think you're way over in Groverton."

"Good," Scali told him, "We'll hide under the back seat when you take us back to Eastbridge; you can drop us off at..."

The loud roar of an engine coming up the road behind them. "GUN!!!" Mike yelled out. Before Adrian knew what was happening, the rookie cop jumped in front of him as shots rang out. Mike swayed and crumpled face first to the dirt as a brown Stratus peeled rubber up the road, a high-powered rifle retracting through the window. "After him!" Scali shouted at a stunned Stan, "Bring him in by any ethical costs!" He dropped to the dirt as Stan sped off in pursuit and started shaking Mike desperately. "Come on Mike, please!!" he pleaded out loud, "Don't go on me like this!!"

But Adrian knew it was already too late; another member of the Thin Blue Line had just been taken--saving his life, no less. As a brother cop, he now had extra, to-the-core reason to bring each and every one of the bad guys to justice, for Mike's sake and memory.


	12. Back to Eastbridge

"OK now, up with that end," the medics that had been called to the scene hoisted up the sheet-covered gurney on which Mike's body lay and wheeled it into the waiting ambulance parked nearby, waiting to take it back to Eastbridge General Hospital and an admittedly superfluous autopsy. Adrian watched it be loaded in solemnly, still trying to fully come to terms with Mike's sacrifice for him. He trudged over to Scali, seated on a pile of tires and staring blankly into space. "I, uh,..." he fumbled for the right thing to say, "I, uh, hope you'll be all right."

"Yeah, I'll be fine, Monk," Scali said, his voice distant, "It just...well, I'm sure you know, it takes time to adjust when you see a good cop killed in the line of duty. Every cop has bad memories of something like this; for me, every time I see it happen, I keep flashing back to Irv."

"Irv?"

"He was chief of detectives when I first started as commissioner here," Scali explained, "Thirty years on the force, model cop if there ever was one. About four years ago, he begged me to let him take part in a big bust; I let him do it over my better judgment, and he got filled full of lead, although he still held out for a couple more days before he died. I'll be honest," his face contorted in discomfort, "I almost went over the edge after that trying to get revenge. Luckily I managed to stop before I went too far. I use it as a cautionary tale to new recruits who feel the need to take the law into their own hands these days."

He looked to his left at Stan, having returned from the chase of the shooter's car, which had been too fast for him. The other patrolman, not surprisingly, was also staring blankly ahead, his eyes moist. The commissioner rose up and walked over to him, Adrian almost robotically following. "Hey Stanley, it wasn't your fault," he reassured his underling.

"I didn't look back once; he could have been right there the whole time, and I..." Stan wasn't immediately convinced.

"We can't control what these guys do all the time, Stan," his superior said firmly, "This hurts me as much as it hurts you, but we can only go forward from here. You said you got the car's license plate; we'll have a scan on it in no time, so you did good tracking that down for us."

"Speaking of that, boss," another uniformed cop that had arrived as backup walked up, "We just got it back; the car was reported stolen two days ago, and guess who they got on camera taking it?"

"Let me guess, Charlie the Sledgehammer?" Scali posed, not surprised at all.

"Bingo," the other cop nodded, "We've got an APB out on him now; with luck we'll pick him up within the hour or so."

"That's the good news," his partner ran up as well, "The bad news is, the feds heard about the shooting boss; they're on their way here now."

"Oh damn!" Scali groaned. Even now, in fact, Adrian could hear the distant wail of sirens coming up the road. "Uh, you, you wouldn't happen to know if there's a sanitized place we can hide?" he asked anyone and everyone.

"Um," Scali's eyes scanned the property and landed on the ambulance behind them. "Wait, don't leave yet!" he called out to the medics, who were just about to shut the ambulance's back door, "Take us on board too! Police emergency!"

The medics exchanged confused glances, but nonetheless helped the two men up into the ambulance, slamming the back doors shut just in time before the screeching of half a dozen tires filled the diner's parking lot. "Here," Scali tossed Adrian an operating room uniform that had been lying in the corner, "In case they come barging in here."

Adrian had his reservations about using a uniform that had been lying on a floor for who knew how long, but he complied, musing to himself how incredibly convenient it was they'd have a disguise right at hand. He wiped the face mask against his ruined pant leg before sticking it in place over his face. He and Scali peered through the windows as Thorpe and a dozen or so agents strode up to the cops on the scene. "OK, what happened here?" he demanded of the officer that had brought up the report on the license plate.

"I can answer that," Stan interceded, wiping away the last of his tears, "My partner and I came here on a tip the commissioner might have come by, and while we were examining the property, the killer called Charlie the Sledgehammer drove up and shot him. He got away before I could do anything."

"So Monk killed a cop now, too?"

"No, didn't you hear me, it was Charlie...!"

"Don't think I'm buying that!" Thorpe bellowed in his face, "You know as much as I do this Arm and Hammer guy doesn't exist, that Monk and your boss made him up to cover their tracks! Now, tell me the truth, did you see which way they went?"

"Uh..." Adrian could see the strain on Stan's face as he tried to come up with the right lie for the occasion, "He went that way, but he was already gone before I could pursue him," he settled for essentially the truth.

"OK, send some units west and see if you can find any tips on where he went from here," Thorpe ordered an adjutant, "In the meantime, let's go take a look at the body and see if we can find any clues ourselves."

Adrian gulped nervously. "Uh, we're, we're with you if they ask," he desperately asked the medics behind them. Moments later their came a rapping on the ambulance's back doors. With a deep, nervous breath, Scali threw it open. "Ah, the federal G-men," he said in a fake German accent, "To vat do ve owe the plezure?"

"Doctor, we'd like to take a look at the body," Thorpe told him, "We need to ascertain the manner of death specifically for the investigation."

"Vell, vell, anything to help," the commissioner told him with false buoyancy in his voice, "Dietrich," he addressed Adrian, "Take off the cover so they can get a goot look at ze victim."

Adrian grunted softly and did just that, folding the sheet perfectly in half. "Azz you can see, the subject was shot nine times in ze chest with a high-powered assault rifle," he lectured, "Am I correct, gentlemen?"

The medics, completely stunned by what was going on before them, merely nodded. "As you can note," Adrian lowered his voice to a rough whisper; he knew Thorpe might recognize him by voice, "We're dealing with a professional here; he fired in a circle right over around the heart, and you can tell he's especially evil in that he fired an odd number of shots and didn't make a full and complete circle with the shots."

"OK,' Thorpe seemed rather confused by this assessment, "Well, thank you, doctors, we'll try and plug what you've told us into our computers, and they'll tell us what they need to know in no time."

"One, one more thing before you go," Adrian had been troubled by something ever since he'd gotten into the ambulance. He grabbed a tray of needles from the counter on the port side and handed them to Thorpe, "We, we really don't have any reason to have these, these terrible things here, so if you can do us a favor, dispose of them for us."

"Uh, sure, sure," Thorpe nodded softly, "And then, perhaps, doctor, you could do a favor for me, too."

"What's that?" Adrian inquired. He found out the hard way a second later when Thorpe unexpectedly yanked the mask from his face. "Aha! I thought so!" the federal agent shouted, "Only you would be put off with an odd number of shots to the victim's chest, Monk! Now you're...!"

"Hey Thorpe," Scali spoke up, pulling off his own now superfluous disguise.

"What!?" Thorpe bellowed at him, getting his own answer the hard way when Scali unexpectedly gave him a big kiss right on the lips. He took advantage of Thorpe's complete shock at this to shove him out the back door and slam it shut. "Floor it!" he roared to the ambulance driver.

"GET THEM!!!" came Thorpe enraged shout, followed by guns cocking behind the ambulance. This was more than enough to prompt the driver to hit the gas as hard as he could. The ambulance lurched back onto the highway, spilling equipment off the shelves to the floor. Adrian groaned and tried to separate them as best he could. "So what's the plan now?" he called up to Scali, already brushing his way past the driver for the radio.

"Well, since we don't have enough evidence to get Tom Redgrave directly yet, we'll have to try the backdoor approach," Scali activated the radio and switched it down to police broadband frequency. "Eastbridge dispatch, this is C1," he identified himself, "I'm heading east towards Eastbridge and request police escort for the ambulance I'm in."

"We'll send X-rays 3 and 8 for that, Commissioner," the dispatcher assured him, "What's the emergency?"

"Oh, just a little chase, nothing to worry about," Scali said matter-of-factually, even as the sound of cars slamming into each other could be heard behind them, and quick glance out the back window by Adrian showed the Eastbridge cruisers trying to force Thorpe's cars off the road. He hastily rushed to the front of the ambulance both to avoid the possibility of getting in a smash-up and to block out the mess in the back. He stared straight ahead at the road in front of them as Scali continued, "I also want you to call the phone company and get all the phone calls originating from and coming into 678 Conklin Avenue, and let me know what you find."

"Good thinking," Adrian agreed as his colleague hung up, "If Redgrave called either Fromann or Charlie the Sledgehammer. we'll know."

"It might also help, Monk, if we knew where the jewels were," Scali pointed out, "Then we could get a positive lock on Fromann after a fingerprint test, and maybe we'd get a confession out of him if the decks were stacked against him when he he gets caught."

"It has to be some place out of the way that you wouldn't expect jewels to be hidden," Adrian mused out loud, "Somewhere Fromann could stash them knowing they'd end up here in Eastbridge for sure..."

And then it hit him. "Joe said a woodcarver got killed just after the dock murders," he realized, "You don't suppose it may have been the same guy who'd been restoring...?"

"The Carmel Apostolic Clock," Scali's face lit up like a Christmas tree, "Yeah, I saw on the plaque McKane put in front of it that it had been restored in San Francisco!"

"It makes sense now," Adrian nodded, "Tom Redgrave must have found out about the Carmel Clock being brought back to Eastbridge, and that it was being restored in San Francisco, where the jewels had been coming in through in the first place. He called Ike Fromann up to tell him where to find it, and Fromann killed the woodcarver and stuffed the Incan jewels into the clock somewhere. That way McKane could retrieve his promised cut of the heist in private when no one was around."

"But we had surveillance on McKane since you pointed out he might be a suspect, and he never got the chance to get them before he died," Scali reasoned, his face brightening even more, "And since there's still been someone on duty at the Historical Society after his death looking for additional evidence, Redgrave hasn't gotten a chance to check himself. So where in the clock do you think Fromann hid the jewels, then?"

Adrian thought hard. "The paper that was mailed to him, it said, 'Rebel,'" he remembered, "Rebel...Simon the Zealot."

"Exactly," Scali snapped his fingers, "And besides, you get less suspicion if you choose a lesser known disciple like Simon."

"Huh?" Adrian didn't quite understand this, but he didn't get a chance to ask, for they'd reached the outskirts of Eastbridge, where an additional pair of cruisers were waiting for the ambulance. These cruisers prompting pulled across the highway, barricading it to the federal agents. The sounds of a half dozen brakes squealing loudly behind them signaled the blockade worked perfectly. "That'll hold them for a while," the commissioner said proudly, "And once we take care of business, they'll have less reason to be upset with us about not being able to solve this."

"We hope," Adrian added softly, "And speaking of hoping, I hope they formed a straight blockade with the center right in the middle of the road back there."

Scali paid no attention. They were now inside Eastbridge proper, and it was less than a minute later that they pulled in front of the Historical Society building. Another cruiser was indeed parked out front on duty, and the two patrolmen currently on duty, a man and a woman, rushed up to Adrian and Scali as they hopped out of the ambulance, which sped on towards the hospital with Mike's body. "So what's going on now, boss?" the latter asked him, "Is Mike...?"

"Unfortunately yeah, Carmela," Scali shook his head sadly, "But on the plus side, we're about to get another big break in the case, once we do a little modern day mining. Ronnie, go see if there's a hacksaw or something else sharp in your trunk."

"Right," the male officer nodded and strode back to his cruiser. Scali rattled the Historical Society's door, but it was locked. Much to Adrian's discomfort, he kicked the glass in, then reached through the hole to unlock the door. He then reached for the light switch on the wall once they were inside to light up the museum, then reached a bit higher and yanked the wiring out of the alarm system, silencing the alarm that had been ringing since he'd broken the door. He and Adrian hustled towards the Carmel Clock at the back of the museum. "So, just so we're sure, did you happen to deduce which one was Simon the other day?" he had to ask the detective.

"I'll, I'll need another look," Adrian shook his head. Scali took hold of the clock's minute hand and turned it to the top of the hour. Adrian stared intently at each carved disciple as they emerged and wound their way across the top of the clock. "This one," he pointed at the eighth one in the procession as it appeared, "He's holding a saw..."

"Tradition holds Simon was martyred by being sawed in half," Scali realized. He pulled the minute hand back down to twelve minutes before the hour to stop the procession with Simon right in the middle. "You've got that hacksaw yet!?" he called out to his cops.

"Right here, boss," Ronnie came charging up, holding one in his hands (Adrian couldn't help also wondering how equally convenient it was that one would be readily available for them). He handed it to Scali, who raised it over Simon. "Not, not yet," Adrian held up his hands, "Got to make sure we do it right. You have a black ink marker in there, too?" he asked Ronnie.

"Huh?" the patrolman's eyes went wide in confusion.

"I need to cut it right down the middle of the figure, Ronnie," Scali sighed, visibly reluctant to have such a delay.

"Oh all right; Carmela, the marker in the glove compartment!" Ronnie caleld out to his partner. She rushed into the museum with one moments later. "Why?" she had to ask.

"You'll thank us later," her boss told her. He drew a line right down the middle of Simon (Adrian might have pointed out it wasn't a straight line, but he was anxious to get the jewels out as well and get the case closer to completion without raising any more delays) and placed the saw on the former Jewish rebel's head. "OK, prepare yourselves for a sight you've never seen before," he told everyone, and started to saw away...

...just as Adrian realized something. "Commissioner," he spoke up quickly, "If Redgrave wanted to eliminate McKane before he could get his cut of the jewels, wouldn't it have made sense to tell him the WRONG place to find the jewels?"

His eyes going wide as he realized what the detective was insinuating, Scali hastily stopped sawing--too late, for the sound of fuses whining to life hinted strongly that they'd triggered some kind of explosive device inside Simon. "Don't move a muscle," Adrian told him quickly, "That type of bomb'll detonate if you move..."

"I know how they work, Monk!" Scali's voice was about five octaves higher than normal. "Well don't just stand there!" he cried at the two beat cops nearby, "Get on the horn with the bomb squad, quick; I don't know how long I can hold this!"


	13. The Big Reunion

"All out for Eastbridge," the bus driver announced as his vehicle slid to a stop at the depot, "Behind the yellow line, please," he pointed a finger at Adrian's associates as they rushed hastily for the door before it had come to a complete stop. They reluctantly did so, but still pushed past him the moment the doors burst open. "So, where now?" Disher asked out loud, glancing up and down the street.

Any answer his associates might have given was quickly drowned out by the wail of sirens coming hard up the street. Several S.W.A.T. trucks and bomb squad vans roared by at high speed. "Easy, follow them," Natalie suggested.

"You sure?" Disher inquired.

"Randy, there's a reason I called him the Prince of Darkness when I first met him," she raised an eyebrow.

"Very good point," Stottlemeyer was nodded firmly, "After them, then."

* * *

"Just hold nice and still, Commissioner," the leader of the city's bomb squad told Scali gently, slipping a protective visor over his head and a blast shield in front of him.

"Do I really have a choice?" Scali forced a grin. The squad leader waved forward another team member with a large mechanical drill. "Hold still everyone," he announced, inserting the drill into Simon's left hip. Behind a blast shield of his own, Adrian braced himself for the worst as the drilling began. Luckily, though, the only sound to come out was the sound of the drill shutting down, followed by the beeping of the bomb. "Success," the driller proclaimed, "OK, let's get those cutters up here."

"First, one thing first," Adrian raised his hand. Keeping the shield in front of him, he hustled forward, took hold of the drill, and drilled a second hole into Simon's right hip exactly across from the original one. "You'll thank me later," he told the puzzled bomb squad.

"Why?" the leader was completely confused.

"Never mind," Scali rolled his eyes, "Like he said, you'll thank him later. So which one's the trigger wire?"

"Give me a minute here," the squad leader aimed a flashlight into the original hole. "So anyway, Monk," Scali tried to maintain a calm demeanor despite the gravity of the situation, "If this was a double-cross, which one do you think Fromann REALLY put the jewels in?"

"I'd say it was Judas," one of the bomb squad members spoke up from the back of the room, "Perfect reverse psychology in a double-cross to put the jewels in the traitor."

"Nah, too obvious; I'd say Matthew," Paulie piped up behind him (he'd actually been first on the scene once the call had gone out), "He'd be Simon's natural opposite as a tax collector, the very person a Zealot would have loved to see humiliated back in biblical times, so that's the reverse psychology."

"Well we'd better be right this time; no telling if Fromann booby-trapped all of the wrong disciples just to make sure," Scali commented, his hand shaking from the pressure of the situation. Adrian hoped they'd get it over with soon; he doubted the commissioner could hold still much longer. He thought hard about what the right answer was. Then, suddenly, it hit him. "When we were in Redgrave's office, he was setting up the flags of Spain and India on his desk," he said out loud, "The apostles most connected with those countries..."

"James and Thomas," Scali realized as well, "Of course, it would make sense given the size of the gems he'd need two apostles to hold them."

"Well, we'll see in a moment, because if we're wrong about which wire this is," the bomb squad leader pointed to a yellow one he'd marked with tape, "I'm betting this entire building will go up. OK, Lawrence, let's see if we're right."

He waved forward another squad member with a pair of wire cutters. Adrian sucked in a deep breath as this man put the cutters around the yellow wire and snapped them shut--and was deeply relieved when the beeping died away instantly. "All clear," the squad leader announced, prompting relieved claps throughout the museum, "You can move now, Commissioner."

Scali let out a deep exhale. "Thank you gentlemen, great work as always," he commended the bomb squad, "Hang around a couple minutes, though, till we see if we're right here."

He turned the minute hand on the clock back to the top of the hour to restart the procession. "Just tell me when you see James or Thomas, Monk," he told the detective. Adrian stared intently at the disciples again. "There's Thomas," he pointed at the next to last in the procession, "He's holding a spear; Thomas is said to have been killed with one. And I'm guessing James is first in the procession since he was the first one to die."

"Well, one way to find out; drill please," Scali gestured for it after he'd halted the display again by turning the clock back seven minutes. He stood back while Adrian used the patrolmen's marker to draw a perfect circle right in the middle of Thomas's chest, them pushed the drill up against it before Adrian could fix it (somehow looking at it, it no longer looked like exactly a perfect circle). "Brace yourselves," he called out, flattening himself behind his shield. Adrian did just that, and was quite relieved when the drill let out a scream similar to coming in contact with an unbreakable surface; the gems were indeed there. "Hacksaw, Carmela," Scali waved excitedly for it. Once Adrian had drawn a line down the middle of Thomas as he had with Simon, the commissioner sawed away until four large gems spilled loudly to the floor, eliciting loud gasps from the bomb squad and attendant cops. "Whoa ho ho!" Paulie gushed excitedly, holding them up in his palm, "We hit the mother lode tonight!"

"And now for part two," his superior turned the clock back to midnight to get the disciples back into the clock, turned it to twenty-five after to reset the mechanisms, then back to midnight again to restart the procession, then to ten after the hour to stop it again the moment James at the front of the line reappeared. Two more minutes of drilling and sawing revealed the other four gems. "Excellent, excellent," Scali rubbed his hands in excitement, picking these jewels up as well, "Now we can tell the good guys in the FBI we've got what they're looking for."

Suddenly there was a loud click as the wall behind them slid open. "Good, but before you do, give them here!" came a low, cold voice. Adrian jumped after he turned to find himself looking at a face almost identical to his own except for the large scar. "Charlie the Sledgehammer?" he guessed.

"Monk," the murderer and bank robber sneered, "You've been a big help for me so far. The jewels, Commissioner, now."

He extended his palm impatiently, raising a rather large machine gun in his other hand. "You can't win, Charlie," Scali shook his head, putting the gemstones behind his back, "You're outnumbered here several dozen to one; there's no..."

The doors to the museum abruptly burst open. "FBI, freeze!" yelled a pair of agents in unison, each brandishing his own gun; they must have gotten through the blockade now, Adrian realized. Charlie the Sledgehammer calmly spun and blasted them both. Before anyone could recover from the shock of this, the criminal grabbed Paulie and shoved the machine gun to his temple. "You have the advantage, you say? Well, I think this evens the odds!" he barked at Scali, "The jewels, now, or he's a dead man!"

"All right, all right!" Scali was quick to capitulate with human life at stake. He quickly slid the jewels across the floor to Charlie the Sledgehammer, who kept the gun trained on Paulie as he bent down to pick them up. "Very good," he snickered, walking backwards towards the secret passage with his hostage, "Now, none of you better follow us, or he's still dead."

"You know there's cops and feds all over this town, don't you?" Paulie was at least calm about his predicament.

"And I'll do to them what I did to those two losers, so shut it, pretty boy!" his captor gestured with his foot at the downed FBI agents. He kicked the wall shut once they were in the secret passage. Scali rushed to the wall and pushed hard at it, but it did not give at all. "Something else's got to trigger it!" he mused worriedly, "No time to find it, though. Ronnie, Carmela!" he waved his beat cops forward, "Break this down and chase him down! Don't shoot unless you've got a clean shot at him! Tell me where he comes out! Monk, with me!"

"Right," Adrian was quite glad they wouldn't be going into the dirty tunnel after Charlie the Sledgehammer. "This also makes sense," he commented as they rushed outside to Ronnie and Carmela's cruiser, "McKane could easily slip into the tunnels after hours without anyone noticing and then follow the maps the Historical Society printed up about the Underground Railroad here to whichever house he needed to kill someone in."

"Exactly," was all Scali could manage nervously as he dug out the radio. "This is C1; this is a red alert for Charles 'the Sledgehammer' Loof; he is moving through underground tunnels under the Historical Society building with Detective Pentangeli as a hostage!" he shouted to ever cop on the horn, "I want a ten block perimeter around the Historical Society building, and look everywhere for any sign of them; my call sign will be in X-ray 11 when you get visual confirmation on them! We'll be circling around the perimeter waiting for your tips! Monk, let's do it!"

* * *

"There he is!" Disher pointed hard as he rounded the corner and saw the detective running to the passenger side of the cruiser. "Monk!" he shouted as loud as he could from being winded after a long sprint after the bomb squad trucks.

"Mr. Monk!!!" Natalie added a loud shout of her own as she braked to a stop by the lieutenant. Adrian, however, did not hear any of them before he jumped into the cruiser and the sirens started blaring, drowning out any calls they may have made. Stottlemeyer, nonetheless, ran after it anyway as it pulled out into traffic, even though it was clearly too fast for him. "Cab, cab!!" he waved down one that luckily was coming up the street at that time. "After that cop car, quick!" he instructed the driver.

"Why?" the cabdriver shook his head, reluctant, "I don't get involved with the police."

"We're also the police!" Disher flashed his badge at him, "We need to catch up with that car, pronto!"

"I"m going to need a better reason than that, bud."

"OK, how's this!?" frustrated from the long and grueling journey, Stottlemeyer aimed his gun at the cabdriver. "That's as good a reason as any," the cabdriver gulped, "Hop on in."

* * *

"I see daylight," Ronnie announced excitedly over the radio as Scali peeled rubber through the streets of Eastbridge with no apparent pattern in mind, "We're climbing up now...looks like we're in that old abandoned lot by where the Hippodrome used to be on Maple."

"X-ray 11, this is X-ray 2; I have visual," another officer broke in, "He's stolen a black 1997 Volvo, heading west on Maple, between Ninth and Tenth."

"Good work, John; follow at a discreet distance, but don't let him out of your sight," Scali told him, "All units, this is C1 in X-ray 11, you heard those directions; converge on him at all sides, see if you can block him in," he ordered his men, "Get the spike strips ready; I don't want gunfire until Detective Pentangeli is clear and safe. Hold on, Monk."

He made a wild U-turn in the middle of the street. Adrian gripped the door handle hard, hoping neither Ronnie or Carmela had been sick in the past couple of days. "You scuffed the road!" he cried, seeing the very clear skid marks on the road behind them, "Now we'll have to come back and fix it later!"

Scali paid no attention to him. "X-ray 11, this is X-ray 4; he's just turned onto Eleventh and broken through the fence around the new skyscraper going up on the corner," another cop broke in."

"Skyscraper?" Adrian gulped; this was positive proof of just how evil Charlie the Sledgehammer was to choose a standoff there.

"We're about two minutes out, Bill; all units in pursuit, form a perimeter around the construction site, but don't take action till I get there!" Scali barked over the airwaves. He hit the gas hard, prompting Adrian to close his eyes and try and envision a white static-free room, as he usually did in these situations. They arrived quite quickly at the construction site. The detective glanced up as they hopped out of the cruiser and shivered to see two figures on the fifth floor of the building in the fading daylight. He hoped sincerely they wouldn't have to go up there. Scali grabbed a bullhorn off one of the dozen or so cops already at the scene. "OK Charlie, you're surrounded, and there's no way out!" he shouted up at the killer, "So just let Detective Pentangeli go and come down with your hands up!"

"You want me!? Come and get me, Scali!!!" Charlie the Sledgehammer dared him. A spray of machine gun fire peppered the yard below, sending the cops scurrying for the safety of their cruisers. Adrian crouched down behind the nearest one and covered his head...

...and was surprised to hear an especially loud shot ring out next to him, going in the opposite direction. "Captain!?" he was amazed when he opened his eyes to see his superior standing above him, firing up at the skyscraper.

"Nice to see you too, Monk, and by the way, who the hell are we supposed to be shooting at here?" Stottlemeyer inquired, firing off two more rounds, and prompting the Eastbridge cops to open with a return barrage at the killer of their own.

"My evil twin, essentially," he told Stottlemeyer, who stared at him in confusion. "Natalie, Lieutenant," he greeted them as they came running towards his hiding place as well with their heads down, "How'd you figure out where I was?"

"You've been front page news, Mr. Monk," his assistant held the paper she'd read back in New York to his face, "So would you mind telling us what's going on that made you leave San Francisco without telling us anything!?"

"Uh, in a minute, after the firefight ends," he said quickly, ducking down again as Charlie the Sledgehammer shot out the cruiser's windows above him. "Hey, stop firing; everybody stop firing!" Scali shouted at his men through the bullhorn. "Charlie, you can't win!" he shouted at his quarry again, "Just come on down, and don't cause any more trouble; it's all over!"

"Yeah, well I've still got the upper hand!" the killer thrust Paulie forward over the edge, "Either you all put down your guns and get back, or he's a pancake on the ground!"

"Don't worry about me, Tony!" Paulie called down bravely (or at least with an air of bravery, Adrian reasoned), "Blast his rotten head off!"

With a worried breath, Scali ducked down behind the cruiser. "Any suggestions, anyone?" he asked the newcomers.

"Hey, you look a lot like..." Stottlemeyer couldn't help saying.

"NO, I'M NOT RELATED TO DETECTIVE MACKEY IN LOS ANGELES, AND I NEVER MET HIM BEFORE IN MY LIFE!!!!" Scali bellowed with pent-up frustration over the continued misconception. He took a deep breath and said more calmly, "As I was saying, you guys know anything? I'm at a stalemate here."

"Uh," Disher scanned the construction site. "Got one," he exclaimed, noticing a crane with a wrecking ball nearby, "Just stall him for time."

He dashed off before anyone could put up a counterargument. "OK then, Monk, you stall better than anyone," Stottlemeyer took the bullhorn off Scali and handed it to his go-to man, "Do your stuff."

"OK,' Adrian hesitantly rose up into the probable line of fire. "Uh, Mr. Sledgehammer," he said tentatively, holding the bullhorn far from his lips to avoid catching anything that might have been on the mouthpiece, "We're, we're willing to make a plea bargain with you. We'll be willing to step outside this construction site if you agree in turn to move up or down to either the sixth or fourth floors."

"Why!?" Charlie the Sledgehammer demanded.

"Because the way you're doing it now, on the fifth floor, it's just all wrong," Adrian heard the sound of the crane starting; it would take some time for Disher to get it up to full steam, though, he knew. "You, you're seriously endangering Chief of Detectives Pentangeli holding him prisoner on an odd-numbered floor," he went on, "Not to mention endangering yourself too."

"Monk, no one gives a damn what you think!" the killer shouted down to him, "And your time's up; here he comes!"

"No, wait, wait!!!" Adrian waved his arms frantically, "Um, I, uh, um....how about this: you move to an even-numbered floor, and we'll...uh...we'll...uh...we'll be willing to...actually, I can't really think of a good counter-offer."

"Then you're time's up!" Charlie the Sledgehammer cocked the rifle, but it was at that moment the wrecking ball slammed into the scaffolding not more than five feet from him. The murderer shook violently from the shock of the impact and dropped the rifle. Paulie quickly grabbed it and trained it on him. "As we were going to say back at the museum," he shouted loud enough to be heard from the ground once the vibrations had died away, "You're under arrest, Charlie! Now, who hired you to kill Sam Norman and Officer Sharp! Was it Tom Redgrave!?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!!" the killer assumed a cool, mocking posture once he'd recovered his senses.

"It's over, Charlie!!" Scali barked up through the bullhorn from the ground, "I want answers! Paulie, bring him down!"

"Right!" his adjutant called down. He took hold of Charlie the Sledgehammer's arm...

...only to have the suspect break away and step towards the edge. "Hold it right there!" the chief of detectives shouted at him. Charlie the Sledgehammer, however, merely laughed maniacally as he tossed himself sideways off the skyscraper. Adrian turned away and covered his ears, not wanting to witness the impact. He waited a good minute or so before he dared to look up. A knot of cops were in a circle near the impact point. "Is he...?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"Dead on impact," one of the cops shook his head.

"OK, someone get the ambulance down here then," Scali shook his head as he stepped out of the circle. "You OK, Paulie!?" he asked his adjutant, deeply relieved, as the chief of detectives rushed out of the service door.

"As OK as a guy who's been dragged at gunpoint through a muddy tunnel can be," Paulie groused, but he was still smiling. "Look what I managed to save, though."

He held up all eight of the jewels. "They fell out of his pocket when the wrecking ball hit the girders," he explained, "But where'd it come from?"

"From me," Disher ran up, "Who are you guys, anyway?"

"Commissioner Tony Scali, Eastbridge P.D., this is Chief of Detectives Pentangeli, and if I'm not mistaken, you must be none other than Lieutenant Randall Disher," Scali greeted him warmly with a handshake, "And let me just say, that was a great idea for once, setting off a big vibration to startle him so Paulie could get the upper hand."

"Oh? You mean I didn't hit him with the ball?" Disher frowned.

"Don't, don't let it get to you, Randy; you still did good," Adrian commended him.

"And now that it's over, Mr. Monk," Natalie fixed him with a hard look as she and Stottlemeyer walked up to the knot of cops, "How about that explanation for everything!?"

"First," Adrian countered, "Let me say that I did specifically ask in my note that you not come after me on this, that this was very personal and your lives might be at stake..."

"And I thought you'd realized after we learned you were alive when you were on the run that you're too important to us not to come after you?" she put her hands on her hips.

"You see Monk, I told you they came because they cared," Scali told him.

"Uh, and you are...?" Stottlemeyer inquired.

"Like I said, Tony Scali, Commissioner of Police," he shook the captain's hand, "Your friend Monk's been staying with me since he got here, so perhaps I can help him with that explanation you all want."

* * *

"...and that's basically everything that's been going on since I left," Adrian finished relating his adventures to his associates. They were all seated around a table inside the motel room just outside of Eastbridge that the Scalis had checked into for the time being.

"In other words, you've been putting in overtime," Disher concluded, signing his name to a piece of paper that Natalie and Stottlemeyer had also signed. "Here you go, the complete collection," he said, sliding it to a beaming David, "Never thought you'd get all of us, did you?"

"Not in my wildest dreams," he grinned, "And when you do get back to San Francisco," he addressed Natalie, "Tell your daughter hello from us as well; after all, we consider her part of your team too."

"I will," she smiled herself, "But so you know, she's already got a steady boyfriend right now." She turned to his parents. "And we thank you so much for taking him in and making sure nothing happened to him," she commended them.

"Hey, we'd do it for anyone who needed a roof over their heads...Sarah, Sarah, no no, you don't want to eat that," Rachel gently took the topaz away from her daughter, who'd picked it up from the table and had started chewing on it.

"I don't think anyone would want to even touch it from now on," Adrian grimaced, gesturing at Natalie for a wipe (he was elated to be able to use one again). "So, you're not mad anymore?" he asked his associates as he scrubbed the topaz down.

"Well, still a little ticked at getting pretty much no sleep for the last three days, having almost nothing to eat during that time except for a pack of stupid ice cream bars, and almost getting frozen solid, but other than that, yeah, no problem, Monk," Stottlemeyer told him, "But next time, just let us know where you're going, especially if it is a Trudy clue; we want to help solve that as much as you do. So, all you got out of it is the name 'Baron?'"

"I'm afraid so," the detective shook his head, "Nothing concrete again, and unless we can come up with something to tie him to Charlie the Sledgehammer and Melvin McKane, Redgrave's probably going to walk."

"At least we have the jewels," Scali gestured to them, "I'm wondering, maybe we could use them to lure him out if he is guilty. Only I'm wondering if he's already suspicious when Charlie the Sledgehammer didn't call back right away." He sighed in frustration. "I'll bet he intended to kill himself from the start," he grumbled, "He'd heard about McKane's death and wanted to stay one step ahead if Redgrave planned on doing the same to him. He'd have been the perfect witness against him in court. Now Redgrave's sitting in his bank office, lighting up a cigar and..."

"Bank office?" Adrian abruptly spoke up.

"Yeah, he's president of the First National Bank of Eastbridge; has been for twenty years, why..." he noticed the enlightened expression growing on Adrian's face. "What, Monk, you think HE funneled the money to the six-fingered man?" he asked, wide-eyed.

"If he knew Ike Fromann, he'd have a connection to the West Coast underworld," Adrian was nodded firmly, a large smile crossing his face, "He'd've been able to know where to reach Nunn with the money, and he could easily cover the transaction as part of his bank's dealings. We need to go down there and check his books, now."

He rose up. "Wait, wait a minute, Monk," Stottlemeyer interceded, "It's after hours, and if he doesn't suspect you know anything, there's no need to rush. Let's make sure we've got something positive first."

Before Adrian could put up a counterargument, there was a knock at the motel room door. "It's me, boss," came Stan's voice.

"Any sign of the feds after you?" his superior inquired.

"Nope, and I checked hard this time. Actually, they're looking for the guy their computers told them is the new mastermind behind the murders; they gave me his picture for reference."

He entered the room and showed Scali a printout of what appeared to be a derelict (Adrian ordinarily would have been quick to arrest such a person, as long as there was any hint of proof the derelict in question was guilty). "Lovely," Scali almost burst out laughing, "Completely ignoring the fact that this kind of guy wouldn't have the money to spend on the crimes that've been committed. And you told them Charlie the Sledgehammer killed Thorpe's men?"

"And actually they bought it; one of them actually survived, and he positively IDed the killer as not being Monk, and of course only Charlie the Sledgehammer's fingerprints were on the gun after they tested it," Stan told him, "Thorpe's steamed, but at least the heat's off Monk for now, so you won't have to worry about them busting in here tonight. Anyway, I got you the phone records for Tom Redgrave, too; it looks like he may have called the West Coast a couple of times, and he definitely called Charlie the Sledgehammer's apartment twice."

"Let me see that," Stottlemeyer leaned over Scali's shoulder, "Yeah, this is Ike Fromann's address," he mused, nodding, "We searched there once after he was accused of gunning down the Bay area's state senator's chief of staff about two years ago."

"OK," Scali said, nodding himself. "Actually, Stan," he called to the patrolman as he started to leave, "We may have something even bigger, so could go back and check even further into Redgrave's records for about the last, say, twelve years?"

"Uh, well, I'm not sure if they go back that far, boss, but I'll see what I can do," Stan said as he left. "Well, this is pretty close to a conviction," the commissioner held up the phone records, "All we need to do is tie him to the jewels and the murder of Sam Norman and Mike, and we've got the case closed."

"And if he is a big figure in this jewel ring," Natalie reached for the records herself to study them, "We could help break up the whole organization if we bring him down. The question is, how to do it?"

"I think I know," Rachel was smiling, "Who says there can't be any last minute entries into WGGY's contest for the trip to Hawaii, Tony?" she told her husband.

"I like the way you think, Rach," he exclaimed, planting a big kiss on the cheek, "That's pretty easy; we've still got the master print of the contest entry form back at the precinct; I can tell Paulie to print up one more and stick it in Redgrave's mailbox overnight. With any luck, he'll show up on time, and we'll take him down with the other perps Monk fingered. Say," he turned to Adrian's associates, "Since you're all here now, how'd you all like to help with Operation Win to Lose?"

"Uh, guess so," Disher nodded, "What do we do?"

"It's very simple really," Scali took a piece of paper off the nearby nightstand, "Here's what we're planning to do..."


	14. Operation WGGY

"Whoa, I'd say this contest proved to be a bit more successful than we'd thought," Paulie exclaimed, staring at the camera monitor in front of him, "There's definitely more than two hundred people out there."

"Oh yeah," Scali had to agree, taking a look himself, "Well, if there's anyone we don't want, we can weed them out once we scan their IDs. So if they don't match up," he turned to Natalie behind him, holding a clipboard, "We'll let you know, and you tell them they've been disqualified for whatever reason and escort them out after you give them their ID back."

"And if they're sore losers and come at me, just so I know?" she had to ask.

"Hey, don't fret, you're surrounded by cops in here," the commissioner reassured her, "You've got the rest your part down pat?"

"You bet; lead them into the screening area..."

"Exactly ten at a time, as we specifically agreed," Adrian reminded her forcefully.

"...take their IDs, run them through the computer out there," she ignored him and continued, "and the relevant information will print out on this computer here," she pointed at another one next to the camera monitor bank, "confirming whether we've got the right people or not. Then I lead them into the final room, telling them the drawing for the grand prize is about to start, and you guys take care of the rest."

"Right on target," Scali commended her, "Better get ready, then," he glanced at the clock above them, "Doors open in three minutes for Operation Win to Lose."

"I, I think we should mop the floor down again, just to make sure," Adrian spoke up as Natalie bustled out the door to get into position.

"Monk, the floor is just fine, you'll have to believe me on that!" Stottlemeyer groaned, "After you cleaned it five times already this morning, there's absolutely nothing left to pollute it!"

"Well, I think I should try for an even sixth, Captain," he countered.

"OK, maybe after we clear out each batch on perps, you can fix whatever needs to be fixed," Scali sighed, "At least since the bust room's soundproof, they won't notice anything suspicious. In the meantime, just try and hold in your urges till we finish the operation, OK Monk?"

"You, you can count on me," he said quickly. His gaze turned back to the monitors bank (he had insisted on an even ten, and in the interests of time had agreed to two parallel banks of five monitors apiece, rather than the straight row of ten that had been his first choice). The Eastbridge P.D. had spent the week transforming a derelict warehouse in a dying industrial district into a convincing TV studio, complete with flashing neon signs on the facade and a fake antenna and satellite dishes on the roof. From the door outside, he noted as he visually ran over the setup, the would-be "contestants" would pass through a metal detector, where several plainclothes officers stood ready to disarm anyone who came in with a deadly weapon, into the largest of several mock rooms that had been built, a large twenty foot by forty foot (they had overruled him on making every room ten by ten, arguing that since they needed to keep large numbers of suspects occupied while waiting for their turn to get busted, they needed a larger initial area; still they were even numbers at work, and he couldn't complain with that) waiting room, complete with a refreshment table, water cooler, hastily constructed bathroom (Adrian vowed to have it cleaned to spotlessness by the time everyone had been arrested), and a TV playing mock WGGY promos, running digitally off a prompter in the back of the control room he was in now blending CGI with stock footage. Scali had decided that fifty suspects would wait in there at a time for however long each arrest phase took, hopefully to be duped by the serene atmosphere there and not realize that closed-circuit cameras were hidden everywhere, watching their every move.

Once Natalie called them, they would be escorted ten at a time into a ten foot by ten foot processing room, where, as Scali had laid out earlier, she'd pass along their IDs to confirm the right people had showed up. Once they were all confirmed, they'd be led into the final room; until that time, Disher was standing by in the processing room as well with a film camera, ready to have the suspects film mock WGGY promos to further disarm them. Once screened, the suspects would enter the final room, another ten by ten construction with specifically soundproof walls, that had a long table with ten chairs set up in the middle--although as Adrian now noted through the two-way mirror between the final room and the control room, the chairs had been improperly set up and were crooked, something he'd have to attend to after the first set of arrests. Stottlemeyer, posing as WGGY's fictional president, would step into the room to tell the "winners" they were ready to give them their rewards, which would then signal the dozen or so uniformed Eastbridge cops hiding behind a hidden door on the other end of the room to burst out and reward the crooks with a trip to the precinct (a small fleet of marked and unmarked police cars were parked in the back of the warehouse, ready to take the prisoners to jail--albeit without sirens until they were outside the building to avoid tipping off those still waiting in line). Beyond that was a secret fourth room that would come into play once it was Tom's Redgrave's turn. Getting it prepared had meant that Adrian had ventured into the depths of hell earlier that morning--rummaging around in a junkyard outside of town, although he'd convinced himself that the final effect once Redgrave laid eyes on what they'd found would make it all worth it. All in all, Adrian did appreciate how well thought out the scheme was, although he was a little disappointed there was little direct role for him to play in the proceedings (although Scali had mitigated this a bit by pointing out how easily recognizable he was and thus the chance seeing him might get their quarries highly suspicious).

"Any sign of Redgrave yet?" the commissioner now asked Paulie at the camera console.

"Give me a minute," Paulie pressed several buttons to bring up the outside camera shot, "Nope, doesn't look like he's quite here yet."

"OK," his superior nodded. He turned to his wife in the back of the room, fitting on a blond wig. "When we see him coming, Rach, turn over your position to Detective Robertson," he instructed her, "He knows you by sight, and he'll know what's going on here. You know what to do?"

"Hey, I do my homework, Tony," she teased him, hefting a basket containing ID numbers and a bucket with numbered balls, "I've got it all down pat right here," she pointed to her head, "You just make sure you remember what you're doing."

"Don't you worry about me," he gave her a parting kiss, "Good luck out there, and just give a me a check whether your radio works out there."

"It's working fine now," Rachel tapped her earpiece before she walked out the door. Her husband nodded and put on a set of headphones. "OK, this is the Commish coming on line; ready with the camera for the promos?" he called out to Disher in the processing room.

"Ready when you are," the lieutenant called back over his own radio.

"Ready with the IDs?" Scali asked Natalie next.

"All set," she told him.

"Arrest team ready?"

"We're all set to go, boss," Stan's voice came from the hidden compartment behind the arrest room.

"OK, then, let's..."

"Uh, Commissioner, before we start, I can't really use these headsets," Adrian interrupted, holding up the pair he'd been given that only had an earpiece on one side, "Do you have one with one on each side?"

Scali sighed loudly. "Go look, Paulie," he told the chief of detectives wearily. Paulie rummaged through the box under his desk and luckily found such a pair of headsets. "Thanks," Adrian put them on and plugged in. "As I was saying," Scali continued, his energy level going right back up, "Let 'em in, Rachel, and let's get this show on the road."

Rachel opened the doors to the outside waiting area. "Good morning," Adrian listened to her greet the several hundred or so hopeful "contestants" waiting for her, who gave her a large applause, "I'm Theresa Eriksen, general manager for WGGY, and I welcome you to our live drawing for our trip to Waikiki. Now, I'm going to pass out entry numbers to the first fifty of you here, and we'll take you inside and lay out the rules for the drawing. Don't the rest of you worry, we'll get to you in time. Once each group goes in, we'll hand out these priority numbers," she held up the bucket of balls, "To determine who goes in first for the first drawing. Some of you will be leaving with nice consolation prizes..."

"I'll bet," Stottlemeyer snorted, "I'd love to see their faces when they see how dumb they look giving those fake promos once they're in the big house."

"Shhh," Scali was apparently interested in his wife's every word. "...so come on in once you get your entry numbers, and I'll pass out the priority numbers to you in the waiting room so Jane our contest coordinator can take the first group in," she concluded her opening speech.

More cheers rang out. Adrian had to admit that at least initially everything seemed to be going well so far. And the good luck continued, for the metal detector confirmed none of the first batch of suspects were armed, hinting strongly they suspected nothing. He dug out a wipe and laconically wiped away at the monitor screens (having nothing better to do at the moment) and watched the first group help themselves to refreshments and select their priority numbers off Rachel. Scali allowed a ten minute relaxation period for them before whispering into his headset, "OK, Ms. Teeger, you're on."

Right on cue, Natalie stepped through the door with the clipboard in hand. "Can I have your attention please?" she called to the assembled group, "I'm Jane Davenport, I'm the contest coordinator, and we'll take the first group in now, so if you've got balls Number One through Ten, walk this way please."

The lucky selectees eagerly strode forward into the processing room. "Can I have your IDs please?" Natalie asked them, "We need to verify you are the people we have selected for the grand prize drawing. In the meantime, while we process them, Ziggy here would like to film you for a set of upcoming promos we'll be airing right after we launch, so once you sign in, go on over to him, and prepare to be a star."

"Ziggy?" Scali frowned at Stottlemeyer, "That was the best code name he could come up with!?"

"Well, you know how his mind works, Commissioner--or in most cases, doesn't work," Stottlemeyer snorted, "I just hope he knows how to work that darn camera."

But it appeared Disher did in fact know how, for the feed that was coming off the monitor connected to the camera was flawless. One by one, each of the suspects smiled straight into it and naively proclaimed after giving the script a brief rundown, "WGGY got me. Did they get you yet?", causing everyone in the control room to crack up repeatedly. While the parade of promos continued, Natalie sat down in front of a computer against the wall and started typing in the relevant information from the IDs. The computer next to Paulie started buzzing and printing out information of its own. The chief of detectives took the papers, waited patiently for Adrian to tap them down evenly, and reviewed what he had. "Looks like they're all pretty much who we want, Ms. Teeger," he informed Natalie over his headset, "We've got two rapists, two burglars, a jaywalker, a building code violation, one extortionist, and three unpaid parking tickets here."

"Should I send them in for the big finish?" she whispered.

"This is Houston, you are go for arrest procedure," Scali gave the affirmative with a big smile.

"Gotcha," she whispered back. "OK, everything seems to be in order," she told the "contestants," handing them back their IDs one at a time, "So now we'll take you into the room where the drawing will take place, and you'll get a few final tips from WGGY's very own esteemed president, Mr. J.L. Bird himself, before we find out if one of you's going round-trip on vacation."

"One-way vacation, of course," Scali was bubbling with delight. "You all set, Mr. Bird?" he asked Stottlemeyer.

"You bet," the captain grinned himself, "They're going to at least enjoy at first what J.L. Bird--'jailbird'--" he and Scali pointed knowingly at each other, "has to say to them."

He walked for the door. "Stand by arrest team," the commissioner told his men in the secret compartment, "When he says, 'We've still got one more surprise for you,' that's your cue."

"Uh, Natalie, Natalie," Adrian felt the need to get involved, "You're seating them wrong. We specifically agreed we'd line them up tallest to shortest or the other way around. Natalie? Are you there? Are you listening?"

There was no response, so either Natalie couldn't hear him or was blocking him out. "Did you hear what I said!?" he hissed again once she was back in the processing room.

"Yes, and for the fifth time, Mr. Monk, it doesn't really matter," she countered softly, "Now you did promise Dr. Bell at the last session you'd at least try to make some progress."

"Sometimes I wonder if you do this on purpose to force me to make progress," he groused. Natalie definitely ignored him this time and let the applicants with balls Numbers 11 through 20 in to be processed. The detective sighed in defeat and turned his gaze through the two-way mirror as Stottlemeyer entered the room. "Hi everyone," he greeted the "winners," "As Jane told you, I'm WGGY president J.L. Bird, and in a minute, we're going to have our first drawing of the day, and maybe one of you will be the grand prize winner of a trip to Hawaii," (Adrian thought he saw his superior's eyes moistening a little; he couldn't blame Stottlemeyer for now and forever connecting Hawaii to the vacation he and Linda were to have gone on before she'd turned to murder). "But first," the captain did recollect himself quickly, "I'd like to tell you all that we've still got one more surprise for you."

"Execute, execute!!" Scali ordered his officers. In a flash, they burst through the hidden door with their guns drawn. So shocked were the suspects at having been so thoroughly duped that they offered no resistance as they were cuffed and hauled out the back door towards the waiting police cars in the back of the warehouse. "Great work, guys, great work," Scali commended his men, "Now load them two to a cruiser, and don't forget to come on back after you've dropped them off in holding; we'll need to keep cycling units in to process all these people."

"Hey Tony, looks like the king is entering the castle," Paulie remarked. He punched the button to bring up the outside camera. A dark convertible was pulling up into the parking lot, and Adrian could very clearly make out Redgrave behind the wheel. "So he got the flyer," the detective breathed in relief, "Now let's hope he doesn't get suspicious before we get to him."

* * *

Little else happened, though, that might have tipped off Redgrave that he was walking right into a trap. The arrests kept coming along at a smooth rate, although Adrian did hold it up after each bust to rearrange the arrest room perfectly, making sure each chair was completely pushed in to the table and that the table itself was exactly perpendicular to the door. He also found time to complain about suspects who had one earring instead of two and those wearing ripped clothes and those with tattoos, among other complains (several of them had spilled coffee all over the rug in the waiting room as well, and only his respect for the operation was keeping him from barrelling out there and fixing it immediately). But if any of the suspects had their doubts--even after a tense moment when he'd felt the need to wipe what he'd thought was a smudge on the mirror and had cuased some very louds squeaks in the process--they didn't show them openly, and slowly the list of people to be arrested narrowed down, and the countdown to Redgrave's moment in the sun continued.

Finally, the time had come. Redgrave and the last group of five other suspects, including a homeless man that looked much like the man Thorpe was now tracking, entered the arrest room. Scali sauntered to the back of the control room and took a drawing ball out of the freezer set up there. "Drop this into the drawing barrel when no one's looking," he instructed Stottlemeyer, taking a marker and painting a large 6 on it to coincide with Redgrave's seat number, "Then once you spin it around, just feel around until you get it so we can make sure he's the grand prize winner, got it?"

"Absolutely," Stottlemeyer pocketed the ball and skipped back out into the arrest room. "OK everyone," he announced to the six remaining suspects, "Due to technical problems and several disqualifications ahead of you, I'm proud to announce that the six of you will be the finalists for our grand prize drawing." He waited for the claps to die down before continuing, "Now, if you'll all just fill out the papers in front of you," he waited until they had looked down to do so before nonchalantly dropping the cold ball into the drawing barrel on his podium, "We'll give this a spin and see who's going to Waikiki."

"Uh oh, Tony, I think we've got trouble," Rachel, who'd joined them in the control room once Redgrave had shown up as per her husband's request, was looking at the outside monitor on the deck. Adrian's heart froze when he saw it as well; Thorpe's bus was pulling up right out front. "Hurry up, Captain, you-know-who's coming!" he hissed through the headphones.

Stottlemeyer stopped just as he was about to open the top of the drawing barrel and bent down behind the podium, faking a cough. "Huh?" he whispered between coughs.

"The feds; they're coming in the front door right now, and they sure don't look too happy!" Scali looked incredibly nervous at this sudden development, "Get that winning number, quick, before they blow it!"

But it was too late: the door burst open, and armed agents stormed into the arrest room. Stottlemeyer dropped behind the podium completely as Thorpe himself charged into the room. "Down on the ground!" he yelled, grabbing the homeless man and tossing him to the floor, "You're under arrest for six counts of murder in the town of Eastbridge, and for...!"

"Thorpe, what the hell are you doing!?" the homeless man yelled suddenly. Abruptly stunned, Thorpe looked down at his arrestee and grimaced. "Palmerston!?" he asked, muddled.

"Huh?" Scali was puzzled. "Find out what's going on out there," he instructed Stottlemeyer.

"This guy knows me," the captain warned. The commissioner rolled his eyes. "Um, uh, um..." he searched for a quick answer, "Hodges," he shouted over the horn to one of the plainclothes officers in the waiting room, "Break up the altercation and get these two out of there so we can finish the operation."

"Right boss," the officer said. Adrian saw him march into the room. "OK you two, why don't we take this outside, so J.L. Bird can continue the drawing, huh?" he asked them sharply, taking them each by the shoulder and leading them out.

"Allen Palmerston, FBI," the would-be homeless man flashed a badge of their own, "And you," he glared at Thorpe, "Just ruined my cover on one of the biggest cases the bureau has been working on in years! I've been tailing...!"

Stottlemeyer rushed to the door and hastily slammed it closed before any vital information could come out. "OK, we'll see what's going on here with all this in a moment," he said quickly, locking the door just to make sure, "But in the meantime, let's finish that drawing, why don't we?"

"Make it quick, Redgrave's getting suspicious," Scali urged him, and indeed Adrian could see the suspicious look on the councilman's face. Stottlemeyer gave the barrel two very quick turns and felt around inside for the cold ball. "And our grand prize winner for the trip to Hawaii is..." he pulled it out as pounding suddenly began on the door, "Number six. That's you, sir," he pointed to Redgrave, "Congratulations. Now if you'll walk with me this way, we can give you your trip and show you what else you've won."

"What's going on out there?" one of the losing suspects was staring at the door. A quick glance by Adrian to the monitors showed an outraged Thorpe, clearly having seen Natalie and Disher in the processing room and suspecting something was up, trying to break the door down with the computer table despite Agent Palmerston's efforts to restrain him. "How, how long can that door hold?" he asked Scali.

"Hopefully long enough," the commissioner looked worried. "You guys still on standby?" he asked the cops in the secret compartment behind the arrest room.

"Still are, boss," Stan replied.

"The moment you hear the door to the prize chamber close, bust the others and get them out of there quick before the feds blow that," Scali was striding towards the door, "Then cover the rear and don't let Redgrave escape if he makes a break for it. Rachel," he turned to his wife, "Once you hear Captain Stottlemeyer tell him what he's won, hit the lights on Prize #1, then do the same with the grand prize when that time comes."

"Right," she sat down at the monitor, her fingers inches above the right switch. Adrian fell in line behind Scali and Paulie and bustled into the sealed room. They crouched down behind a tarp-covered object in the back of the room (Adrian didn't really want to be behind it given what it was, but since it was the only space to provide cover for them, he was willing to be a good sport). The door to the room opened seconds later. "...right back here, Tom," Stottlemeyer was telling Redgrave, shutting the door behind them and locking it too (Adrian promptly heard the shuffling off footprints as the cops stormed the arrest room and carried off the last of the convicts, followed by the door breaking down as Thorpe charged in, clearly mad beyond belief; the detective hoped this door was stronger than that one). "We've got your first complimentary prize right here," Stottlemeyer continued, "And I'm sure you'd like to know what else you've won besides your trip, right?"

"Could you please get to the point, Mr. Bird!?" Redgrave sounded deeply rattled by the FBI's appearance.

"Certainly. Oh 'Theresa,' lights please," Stottlemeyer called out. A set of lights blinked on from overhead, revealing to Adrian where he was hiding the imperial Incan stones, set up on a pedestal. Not surprisingly, Redgrave stumbled backwards in shock. "How'd those get in here!?" he cried out loud, immediately smacking his hand over his lips when he'd realized he'd incriminated himself.

"That's all I wanted to hear," Scali rose up behind the tarp-covered object, a triumphant smile on his face. "Scali!?" Redgrave bellowed, miffed, "This is unconstitutional! I'll see to it you're..."

"Doesn't matter, Tom; your reaction just now proves you know all about these jewels, and I've got it all on tape," the commissioner was grinning ear to ear, "So let me just say..."

Anything he was going to say was cut off as the door was broken down. "Everyone, hands up!" an enraged Thorpe shrieked to anyone who cared to listen, "You're all under arrest for conspiracy to..."

"Will you just shut up!" Palmerston yelled at him, restraining him with the help of Natalie and Disher, who rushed into the room to assist, "This man," he pointed at Redgrave, "Has been a key figure in the international jewel ring we've been following for months, and you just blew my cover, you idiot! My supervisor will hear of this!"

"No, no need to worry, though," Adrian rose up himself, "We caught him ourselves now; he just incriminated himself, and we've got it on tape."

"Monk!?" Redgrave seemed shocked to see him too. "Well you've got nothing!" he barked, "All you've proved is that I've seen these jewels before; I've read about them in the paper since the news got out that...!"

"Wrong," Scali stormed towards him with a glower on his face, "We just picked up your cousin Ike Fromann in Cleveland; he confessed to the cops there that you hired him to kill the other members of the U.S. branch of the syndicate back in San Francisco, and he tells us you told him to stick the jewels in the apostolic clock for you to get. He also told us you had told him you'd hired Melvin McKane to kill off the victims here in town because your partners had double-crossed you and mailed them the jewels from their regular shipments hoping to expose you, and that you told him you were hiring out Charlie "the Sledgehammer" Loof to frame Monk and get him off your back."

"I don't know anyone named Ike Fromann!" Redgrave shouted, "You can't make any of this stick, Scali!"

"OK, then how about arson!!" Scali roared in the councilman's face, pure anger welling up from inside him (making Adrian wonder if he was in fact related to Detective Mackey in Los Angeles after all, since the papers had said Mackey often acted similarly in such a situation). "It'll be easy to order up a search warrant on your house, Tom, and I'll bet we'll find the gas you used to make the cocktails you burned my house down with!"

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about...!!"

"YES YOU DAMN WELL DO!!!" Scali grabbed him by the lapels and lifted him several feet off the ground, "My kids were in that house, Tom; you almost snuffed out their lives on top of the half dozen people you killed to cover up your jewel smuggling!! Not to mention Sam Norman and one of my best cops!! So you'd better give me one good reason I shouldn't wring your neck right now!!!"

"Go right ahead then, Scali, if it makes you feel any better," Redgrave dared him. Scali glanced sideways at his wife in the doorway. She shook her head slowly. "Well I won't," he said firmly, lowering Redgrave roughly back to earth, "There's still a solid line cops have to stay behind, and I won't go over it, especially not for someone as worthless as you. But we're not done yet, Tom, not by a mile, because Monk here's got your second prize!"

"Wait, he's the killer?" his bravado completely evaporated, Thorpe pointed numbly at Redgrave.

"What's the matter, Thorpe; too blinded by your wonderful technology again?" Stottlemeyer taunted him.

"Hey shut up!" Thorpe snapped at him.

"No, you shut up, Thorpe!" Palmerston cowed him, "Like I said, I've been tracking this case for months, and all the evidence was leading straight to this man! And furthermore, I'd say it looks like you're guilty of conducting a reckless investigation here for whatever you got assigned to!"

"Not to mention violating local rights and general abuse of power," Paulie spoke up, lifting up one end of the tarp covering the second object. "But first," the chief of detectives addressed Redgrave, "We'd also like to tell you you've won this too."

He pulled the tarp backwards to reveal a junked car. "What, is this supposed to be some kind of sick joke!?" Redgrave demanded, "What the hell is this!?"

"Don't you remember, Tom?" Adrian advanced towards him, glaring himself now, "On the night of December 14th, 1997, my wife got into a car exactly like this one to get medicine for my brother. Seconds later, she was blown up in it by hired killers--killers that YOU made sure got paid!"

"Oh sure, blame me for everything that's wrong in the world!" the councilman threw up his hands in disgust, "Again, you've got nothing...!"

"Wrong, we've got this!!" Adrian thrust more phone records in Redgrave's face, "You called Frank Nunn twice to set up the drop site for his ten grand, didn't you!? Don't think you can talk your way out of it, Tom; we know this was where Nunn was staying before the murder! And we also did a check of your bank's assets; exactly ten thousand dollars was transferred out of its holdings exactly two days after the murder! You gave that...that..._**that freak of nature**_ the ten grand he thought he deserved for killing the most important person in my life!! Don't deny it, Tom, because I'm not in the mood!" he shouted as Redgrave opened his mouth to rebuke him, "Now, I want the identity of the Judge right now--no strings attached, no double dealing, just give me the name of the man who killed my wife!!!","

"You heard him," Stottlemeyer advanced forward as well, "We want the name now."

"Hold on," Redgrave held up his hand, a defeated yet defiant look on his face. "Monk," he spoke to the detective, "There's actually more I know. Not just about what you want to know, but also something else you should know."

"You heard him, no deals!" Natalie glared right in his face, "Just tell us who the Judge is!"

"But this is very important, Monk," Redgrave appealed to the detective, "I think you should know about what I want to say before it's too late."

"Like what!?" the detective growled.

"First," the councilman held up his hands, "I want a guarantee the court will not seek the maximum penalty against me," he glared at Scali, "And then I want protective custody, because trust me, the person I'm about to finger for you if you agree to hear me out will be coming after me as soon as..."

"Hey shut up you, you have no more rights!" Thorpe had recovered his bravado, "You're going to jail, pal."

"Wait, at least let him finish!" Adrian demanded his nemesis.

"Monk, thank you for catching the killer, but it's my collar, and I'll take it from here," Thorpe told him off, grabbing Redgrave by the shoulder...

Only to have Redgrave seize his gun, hanging exposed from his pocket. "Back, everyone!" he yelled pointing the gun around. Before anyone could do anything, he took off in a run towards the front door. "Aw damn it!" Scali roared, pushing past Thorpe, "He's making a break for it!" he yelled to his cops over the headset, "Cut him off before he gets away!"

"There's hundreds of cars outside," Adrian realized, "He could take any of them."

No sooner were the words out of his mouth then the sound of a very loud engine roaring to life could be heard wafting in the front door. "Oh my God, my truck!" Thorpe's voice was about a decibel higher than normal. He plowed past Adrian and Scali and ran up to his bus, pulling quickly away from the curb. "Stop!" he screamed at Redgrave behind the wheel, "This is government property! You can't take that!"

Redgrave blew the horn loudly to drown him out and accelerated as fast as he could towards the road through the industrial district. The Eastbridge cops poured out of the warehouse and opened fire at the bus, but the bullets bounced harmlessly off it. With no chance to catch it on foot, Adrian slid to a stop and watched it reach the road...

...and immediately get blindsided by a tractor trailer with orange triangles on its side denoting it was an explosives carrier. With the squeal of brakes and a shower of sparks, both vehicles jackknifed sideways through the fence around a propane processing plant and slid towards the propane filling station in the middle of the yard. Adrian knew what would happen if they reached it. "No, no, bail out, quick!!!!" he screamed, rushing towards the trucks even though it was clear he wouldn't get there before there was an explosion.

"Monk, don't!" Disher and Scali grabbed him by the arms and held him back just as the FBI truck and the explosives carrier hit the propane pumps. With an absolutely deafening explosion, a massive fireball rose into the sky. Adrian stared blankly at the burning wreckage, knowing full well there was no way Redgrave could have survived the blast. "Another one gone," he moaned softly, "I had him, I had the lead, and it's gone again."

"Look at it this way, Monk," Stottlemeyer put a hand on his shoulder, "Another conspirator just paid the price for killing her. Now he's stuck in Hell with Tennyson and Nunn for the rest of time, and soon whoever else is involved..."

But Adrian could no longer hear him. Filled with rage, he stormed back to Thorpe. "How could you do it!!??" he bellowed, grabbing his nemesis by the tie, "What idiot with the federal government leaves their keys right in the ignition so the bad guy can escape so easily!?"

"That was government property," Thorpe was distant, watching his truck burn in the distance with a numb expression, "Five hundred thousand dollars worth of irreplaceable government computers, gone just like that. There's going to be an investigation; what am I going to do now?"

"I'll tell you what you can do for starters, pal," Scali strode up to him, "Turn around."

"What?"

"You heard him Thorpe, turn around, right now," Adrian glared at him.

"But Monk..."

"TURN AROUND!!" reversing their usual roles, the detective roughly spun the federal agent around. "Now walk away," he hissed venomously, "Don't stop, don't look back, just keep walking, Thorpe."

"You can't...!"

"You heard him, bud," Stottlemeyer had a triumphant smile on his own face, glad to see Thorpe finally get what he'd dished out to Adrian so much the last time they'd met, "Start walking."

Numb, Thorpe took several steps forward. "Guys, come on, help me out here, it wasn't my...!" he tried to plead to his fellow agents, now standing at the warehouse door.

"Ah, just shut up and do what they say, Thorpe!!" one of them rebuked him harshly, "We've had it working with you; you're an egomaniac, and you treat everyone like trash, including us! So just walk away!"

"And I said don't stop, Thorpe, so keep walking, now," Adrian ordered him. His head hung low with humility, Thorpe trudged off towards the road, a broken man. "If you want to press any charges against him," Agent Palmerston sided up alongside Adrian and Scali, "Just tell me how he may have wronged you, and I'll see it my superiors prosecute him for abuse of power as best they can."

"Oh, the stories I can tell you," Scali smirked, "Where to begin...?"

* * *

"Come on Monk, they're pulling out in three minutes," Disher called to Adrian from atop the stairs of the bus ready to take them back to San Francisco.

"Just, just a minute," Adrian held up his hand. He turned to the Scalis behind him on the sidewalk outside the bus depot. "How, how can I thank you all for the help you gave me with this?" he asked them.

"You don't have to, Monk," Scali patted him on the shoulder, "Really, we should be thanking you. I don't know if I could have cracked this without you."

"Well, I suppose not," he shrugged, wiping at his shoulder, "But you're really not a bad cop yourself. It, it is rather easy to see how you made commissioner."

"Yes indeed," Rachel hugged her husband. "And Monk," she told the detective when he scrunched up in discomfort at this display of affection, "Remember what I said about not running away from happiness. Enjoy life, and whatever good comes with it, even if it is fleeting."

"Well, I suppose it's worth a try," he shrugged, "I'll bet it won't work, but I could give a try."

"And speaking of trying, don't forget Natalie," David told him with a wry smile, "She may say yes if you just ask."

"But why WOULD I want to ask?" the detective sighed, "I don't get why all those fan groups seem to think we're meant to..."

The bus driver blew his horn for final call. "Well, better get going," Adrian stepped towards the bus, "And, uh, thank you again, Commissioner, for everything."

"Tony," Scali told him with a parting smile, "I think we're friends enough now. So long, Adrian."

"So long...Tony," Adrian waved goodbye one last time. He plopped down next to Natalie in seat #10 (thankfully) as the bus pulled out of the depot for San Francisco. "Very nice people, very nice," he remarked to her, "I should really do something to repay them. The question is, what...?"

A wry smile crossed his face. "Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?" Natalie frowned, "I know you mean well, Mr. Monk, but you can't create a TV series out of everyone you come across; for one thing, Benjy won't be able to handle the workload."

"Well, once he hands off some of the other shows he's doing to other people, he'll have time," the detective countered, "Plus, I promised David their son I'd give him his computer web address on that big social site, so that's an easy way to start the series without all the middlemen."

Natalie merely shook her head. "As we said before, just try not to do this again," she told him, "As partners, I deserve to know when you want to go somewhere on a case, so just promise me?"

"Of course," he said. He turned to her. "Uh, well, um, speaking of being partners, Natalie, have you by chance ever wondered if we had, well...if we were meant to be something more than partners?"

"Why?" she said, looking somewhat puzzled.

"Oh, no reason, just some silly ideas people seem to have," he said quickly, glad to have gotten that out of the way. He leaned back in the seat as the bus picked up speed. "Is something wrong?" Natalie asked him, "It seems like something's on your mind."

"Oh, it's just...I had an intense dream of some kind the last couple of nights," he admitted, "It's like, I don't know, it's warning me of something that's going to happen down the line. Which is why I'm disappointed Redgrave died; maybe whatever he had to say would have cleared it up for..."

"Trust me, Mr. Monk, he had nothing useful to tell you," she told him, "He was clearly trying to manipulate his way out of trouble with some false information that would have led us nowhere. And don't worry, dreams don't mean anything, Mr. Monk."

Adrian nodded, but deep down, he wasn't quite so sure. Somehow, he couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible was being foretold to him through the dreams, that something sinister waited for him just down the road...

THE END

* * *

POSTSCRIPT: And so, there is just one more full-length story left to tell. The continuity I've painstakingly created over the last 5 years will be brought to what I hope will be a satisfactory conclusion by the time it's finished. Be forewarned, however, that A) some of the characters we've met over the years will not survive to the end of this reality for reasons you shall see upon publication, as a result of which B) Monk will find out what someone he presumably would trust with his life REALLY thinks about him--and the answer may very well shock you to the core. Stay tuned...


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